The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report from the USA highlights that extreme weather events are “a noticeable aspect of climate change”. It goes on to say that there is a 2 in 3 probability that man-made greenhouse gases have significantly worsened extreme weather events.
According to the nobel prize winning panel, climate scientists are 99% certain that there will be more extreme heat in the future, which will cause increased precipitation in the form of heavy rainstorms.
“By the end of the century, the intense, single-day rainstorms that typically happen once every 20 years will probably happen about twice a decade” the report said.
And there’s an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 would not have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A large part of the resistance to climate action comes from individuals inability to physically experience the 1-2 degree increases in global temperatures. At the margin, such changes in temperature are difficult to “feel”. This report highlights the real dangers of climate inaction lies at the extremities of weather events.
Australia has always been a country prone to natural disasters, including strong rain storms in the tropical north-east. We hope this new report will act as further evidence of the economic and social costs of climate inaction.
