Antinuclear

The Climate Council has released a new report linking climate change with worsening droughts, including the current one, extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods, and identifying water security as a source of grave concern.

The report, Deluge and Drought: Australia’s Water Security in a Changing Climate, stated that if the effects of climate change were left unchecked the results for the agriculture sector and beyond will be devastating.

According to the report, the Murray-Darling Basin — known as “Australia’s food bowl” —has seen a 41 per cent reduction in “streamflows” since the mid-1990s, while water systems in Western Australia’s southwest have declined by about 50 per cent.

Additionally, the report said Australia’s south-east had seen a 15 per cent reduction in rainfall in late autumn and early winter, and a 25 per cent decline in rainfall in April and May over the past 20 to 30 years.

These grim figures were all related, the publicly-funded council found, to rainfall patterns  thrown badly out of whack by climate change.

“Most of our [rainfall] comes from the ocean, so we are exposed to big-scale changes, and the tropics are expanding,” Professor Will Steffen, one of the report’s seven co-authors, said.

“That is the ultimate explanation for why these fronts in the Southern Ocean are now being pushed a bit further south, and so that means that we are getting less rainfall across the southern part of Australia………

Council urges immediate action

The report warned that “continuing on our current trajectory of high emissions has enormous and growing risks”.

“Dealing decisively and effectively with climate change cannot be put off any longer,” the report said.

“Solutions are available.

“We need to accelerate the transition to clean, affordable and reliable renewables and storage technologies and ramp up other climate solutions in the water, transport, agriculture and other sectors.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-11-13/climate-change-report-and-drought-policy/10493812