Searing preview of greenhouse life – National – smh.com.au

Searing preview of greenhouse life – National – smh.com.au: “Searing preview of greenhouse life

By Wendy Frew and Aaron Timms
January 3, 2006

SYDNEY can expect more of the searing temperatures that fanned fires, stopped trains, disrupted air travel and blacked out suburbs on New Year’s Day, according to CSIRO global warming projections.

On average, Sydney experiences temperatures above 35 degrees three days a year. That could double by 2030 and rise to as many as 18 days by 2070.

That would put more pressure on the city’s infrastructure and increase heat-related health risks, said the chairman of the Climate Institute, Clive Hamilton.

‘CSIRO projections indicate that Australian cities can expect a doubling in the number of very hot days in coming decades and drought conditions to become the norm, yet the relentless growth in carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels in Australia has gone unchecked,’ Dr Hamilton said yesterday.

In the past 200 years large amounts of greenhouse gases released by land clearing and burning of fossil fuels have trapped more heat in the atmosphere and warmed the planet.

According to CSIRO projections, it will not just get hotter in Sydney. There will be less rain, but winds will be stronger and extreme weather events such as floods and hailstorms will be more frequent. And if hot days fall during the working week rather than at weekends or on public holidays the city’s electrical infrastructure will face greater difficulties than those experienced on the weekend.

On Sunday, in a challenge to conventional belief that Sydney’s west is always hotter than its eastern suburbs, temperatures peaked on the coast.

Hot westerly winds were behind the unusually high temperatures on the coast, said a forecaster at the…”