The Climate Council is an independent community-funded non-profit organisation.
Our mission is to provide authoritative, expert advice to the Australian public on climate change - www.climatecouncil.org.au
A new comprehensive analysis of recently released climate data has revealed Australia experienced another record-breaking summer.
The Climate Council’s Angry Summer report, released this week by Professor Tim Flannery, shows the country is already experiencing heat extremes related to climate change.
“Australia experienced another angry summer,” says Flannery.
“We had substantial heat records, heatwaves and other extreme weather events,“ says Flannery.
Over the 90 days of summer more than 156 records were broken.
“Perth had its hottest ever night, Adelaide had its hottest ever February day and Sydney had its equal driest summer in 27 years,” says Flannery.
Professor Flannery said climate change was now making many types of extreme weather worse, especially heat extremes and bushfire weather.
“The latest summer was an another example of climate change tearing through the record books,” says Flannery.
“It’s not just about one summer but an overall trend to more extreme weather,” he says.
“Things are getting bad and if we want to stop them getting worse this is the critical decade for action. We need to cut the emission of greenhouse gasses and we need to do it urgently,” Flannery says.
The Report:
This report provides a summary of extreme weather conditions in the 2013/2014 summer, illuminating a continuing trend of hotter summers and more weather extremes in Australia.
READ & DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT
Five Key Findings
- Heatwaves and hot days, drought and rainfall deficiency, and bushfires dominated the 2013/2014 summer.
- Climate change is already increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events in Australia.
- Many of our largest population centres stand out as being at increased risk from extreme weather events, including heatwaves, drought and bushfires.
- The impacts of extreme weather events on people, property, communities and the environment are serious and costly.
- Limiting the increase in extreme weather activity requires urgent and deep reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases. The decisions we make this decade will largely determine the severity of climate change and its influence on extreme events for our grandchildren. This is the critical decade.
1 Million Women would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone from the Climate Council for all the amazing work they do everyday.
See more from www.climatecouncil.org.au
