CSIRO has launched Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia to help inform business, government, and the community about the many issues that need to be addressed in response to climate change.

 

The book highlights the importance of climate change as a matter of significant economic, environmental and social concern in Australia and provides the latest information on international climate change science and potential responses.

 

CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Megan Clark has launched the book at the GREENHOUSE 2011 climate change conference in Cairns. She says that CSIRO is committed to communicating its latest research and scientific advice on the major challenges and opportunities that face Australia.

 

“This publication draws on the latest peer-reviewed literature contributed by thousands of researchers in Australia and internationally,” Dr Clark says.

 

“It seeks to provide a bridge from the peer-reviewed scientific literature to a broader audience of society, while providing the depth of science that this complex issue demands and deserves.”

 

The book’s 168 pages provide scientific insights including:

  • Evidence from many different sources shows human activities are contributing to the Earth’s changing climate
  • Some of the impacts of climate change on Australia are already apparent
  • We are committed to some degree of climate change as a result of past greenhouse gas emissions, so we will need to adapt on a far more extensive scale than is currently occurring
  • Energy saving technologies, demand reduction and distributed power generation will help to lower national carbon emissions
  • Agriculture and forestry hold great potential for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through afforestation, soil-carbon management, and better management of livestock and cropping emissions
  • Action within the next decade to lower greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the probability and severity of climate change impacts.

 

CSIRO has also announced that it will begin work on the next set of national climate projections, planned for release in 2014.

 

Senior scientist with the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Dr Penny Whetton, said the projects will cover a range of factors including sea levels, seasonal-average temperatures, rainfall, as well as extreme weather events such as heatwaves, fires, droughts, floods, and cyclones.

 

Dr Whetton said scientists working on the post-2014 projections will have access to twice the number of climate models available to them in the previous projections released in 2007, as well a new set of emission scenarios. The research phase will last until mid-2012 followed by the development of information packages for Australian regions and communities.

 

Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia can be downloaded for free at: www.csiro.au/Climate-Change-Book.