Climate change making Australia hotter

Australia looks to be feeling the worst of the global warming heat as according to the latest report Australia experienced its hottest decade on record from 2000 to 2009 due to global warming. Australian Bureau of Meteorology announced that the average temperature in Australia over the past 10 years was 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average which has significantly contributed to droughts and summer bushfires.

Sadly, the forecast for 2010 is even worse as meteorologists predict 2010 temperatures to be between 0.5 and 1 degrees above average, meaning that climate change is definitely continuing to play important role in Australia.

The bureau climatologist David Jones said that he wouldn't be surprised if 2010 turned out to be the warmest year on record, especially since currently the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean are taking place.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett added how "Australia is one of the hottest and driest inhabited places on earth and our environment and economy will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change".

If you can remember the year 2009 in Australia (the second warmest on record) was mostly remembered by extreme bushfires, dust-storms, lingering rainfall deficiencies, areas of flooding and record-breaking heatwaves, and things could become even worse in 2010.

Despite the more than obvious climate change problem Australia still hasn't passed a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) aimed at reducing greenhouses gases causing global warming, mostly because opposition blocked the government's climate policy. Perhaps this report will convince politicians that tackling climate change is really a question of national interest, and future of the whole Australia could be at stake here.