By David Wroe, Canberra
January 4, 2006
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LAST year broke heat records by a meteorological mile — it was more than one degree hotter than average, prompting the Bureau of Meteorology to sound a renewed climate change alarm.
The bureau’s annual Australian climate statement, to be released today, shows the average national temperature in 2005 was 22.89, 1.09 degrees hotter than the average between 1961 and 1990.
This makes it the hottest year since records began by a considerable margin. The previous record holder, 1998, was 0.84 degrees above average.
Senior meteorologist Dean Collins said it was a big margin in meteorological terms. It was equivalent, he said, of towns in the southern parts of Australia moving 100 kilometres north.
‘It seems a lot to us,’ Mr Collins told The Age. ‘We are getting to the point where we have had about a degree warmer and … obviously that’s a very anomalous year by any measure.’
The figures come as Australia prepares to host the inaugural meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, at which some of the world’s leading polluters — the United States, China, India, Japan and South Korea — will discuss sharing technology to reduce carbon emissions.
The bureau was concerned that 2005’s heat blitz was not sparked by the El Nino weather event, as were previous record- breaking years such as 1988, 1998 and 2002. Rather, it was the result of the long-term trend in rising global temperatures.
‘This makes it particularly unusual. There really is no explanation other than this global warming trend,’ Mr Collins said.
“We take it as another piece of evidence that our climate is changing and we do need to do something about it. It’s certainly not something we can dismiss. There is no point in getting alarmed — we just need to do something about it.”
Since 1979, only four years have not been above the 1961 to 1990 average, the world standard for temperature averages. Australian average temperatures have risen 0.9 degrees since 1910, in line with global trends.
More than 95 per cent of the country experienced hotter than average temperatures last year. The average maximum temperature of 28.55 was particularly high at 1.21 degrees above normal. The average minimum of 15.07 was 0.97 degrees higher than normal.
Of all the mainland states, Victoria’s average temperature rise was the gentlest. Mr Collins put this down to statistical variation. Victoria’s average maximum was 19.86, which is 0.77 degrees above normal, and its average minimum was 8.34, 0.22 degrees above normal.
Parliamentary secretary for the environment, Greg Hunt, said the heat spike underscored the urgency of next week’s climate forum, which he described as “the most important environmental meeting of the decade”.
“The meeting brings together the biggest developed and developing economies in the world, precisely because they agree there is a problem and because they want to take real and practical steps to reduce emissions rather than just sign a pledge, which is what the Kyoto Protocol is about.”
The Kyoto pact, which the Howard Government has refused to sign, set targets for reducing carbon emissions, but the Asia-Pacific partnership will focus on sharing new “clean energy” technology to cut emissions.
Mr Hunt said Australia was meeting Kyoto’s targets while many countries that had signed the pact were not.
The Government recognised that global warming was a reality that needed to be addressed, he said.
Labor environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said the partnership was “positive but limited” and should complement Kyoto.
The hot year was a global phenomenon. The World Meteorological Organisation says the world average temperature was 0.48 degrees above normal.
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