Natural changes blow hot and cold

Australian
Tuesday 26/2/2008 Page: 4

NATURAL variability in weather rather than climate change accounted for cooler February temperatures across most of Australia straight after record hot temperatures in January, a leading climate scientist said yesterday. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology estimates the nation is likely to record its coolest February since 2002 and 12th coolest since 1951 after recording the hottest January on record. While many commentators blamed the high temperatures on climate change, CSIRO research fellow in atmospheric science Barrie Hunt said the succession of hot days were "not unusual for January."

"It's just year-to-year variability," Dr Hunt said. "Underneath that variability is this insidious slow warming, which is the greenhouse effect, but it's not big enough to stop natural variability, and it's going to take a long time before it is." Dr Hunt said if the drought had been caused by climate change, as claimed by some in the media, then it would have indicated current modeling had grossly underestimated the impact of change on temperatures and rainfall.

Cooler temperatures and above-average rainfall across much of the heavily populated eastern seaboard of Australia are being driven by the La Nina effect, which has been operating since December. Neil Plummet- from the National Climate Centre said the weather this month was similar to previous La Ninas. "It's always very difficult to disentangle things on a monthly basis and we will always have natural climate variability operating and we have a climate change signal on top of that," he said.

Federal Climate Minister Penny Wong said Australia was back on track to meet its Kyoto target of 108 per cent of 1990 emissions only three months after taking office. A re-calculation of Australia's climate budget has incorporated Labor's 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, which is projected to shift the emissions trajectory back under the Kyoto target.

In the lead-up to the election, the Howard government came under attacks from environmentalists, who rejected its projections that Australia was on course to meet its Kyoto target. Yesterday, Australian Conservation Foundation climate spokesman Tony Mohr said the numbers were too close to call as there was "a little bit of up and down in the numbers depending which side of the election you are on."

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the new estimates confirmed Australia was always on track to meet its Kyoto target as the Rudd Government had not made any new contribution to reducing emissions.