Data from the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-term record of temperatures has shown that Australia’s land surface has warmed by 1.5C since 1910.
The figure is revealed in the bureau’s annual climate statement that found 2023 was Australia’s joint-eighth warmest year on record, with the national temperature 0.98C above the average between 1961 and 1990.
According to reports, countries around the world have agreed to “pursue efforts” to keep global heating to 1.5C, but this temperature goal is widely accepted as being relative to a pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900 and combines land and ocean temperatures across the globe.
The bureau’s declaration that the continent has warmed by 1.5C has a margin of error that is plus or minus 0.23C, includes only land temperatures and does not relate to targets to keep global heating to 1.5C.
Dr Simon Grainger, who is a senior climatologist at the bureau, said the warming of Australia’s land surface had moved from 1.48C to the new 1.5C mark after another year of data was added.
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“This warming [in Australia] is consistent with a global climate that is warming with 2023 being the warmest year on record globally,” he said.
Global heating is being caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and land clearing that has increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 50% since the 18th century.
Dr Andrew King, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, said he was “not surprised” Australia’s land surface had hit 1.5C “because we know Australia is already warming above the global average”.
“We also know that the land is warming faster than the ocean and many regions are warming faster than the global average,” he said.
A study published last year using Australia’s official records supplemented by older temperature observations, found the land had warmed by about 1.6C relative to the period between 1850 and 1900. Australia’s land surface had warmed at about 1.4 times the global average of 1.1C, the study said.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
