Sydney's climate to 'become like Bri … - 地球科學討論

※ [本文轉錄自 Ecophilia 看板]

作者: balanceCIH (倒數計時) 看板: Ecophilia
標題: [新聞] Sydney's climate to 'become like Brisbane's'
時間: Wed Jul 8 17:48:02 2009

來源網址： http://tinyurl.com/n9rp94

ABC- Sydney's climate to 'become like Brisbane's' 2009.07.06
Anna Salleh for ABC Science Online

The globe's tropical zone is expanding rapidly and by the end of the century,
Sydney's climate will be more like Brisbane's is today, Australian experts
say.

Climate researchers Steve Turton and Joanne Isaacs of James Cook University
in Cairns reviewed more than 70 scientific papers and documented the rapid
advance of the tropical zone.

Dr Turton examined evidence from weather balloons, satellite imagery, sea
surface temperatures and climate models.

"The review suggests that the tropics have expanded over the last 25 to 30
years, between 2 and 5 degrees of latitude in both hemispheres," Professor
Turton said.

"That's between 300 and 500 kilometres just in that short period of time."

He says given the impacts on everything from farming and healthcare to
viticulture and tourism, much more research is needed to help respond to this
change.

"The tropics have half the world's population, 80 per cent of the world's
biodiversity, very high infant mortality, high rates of tropical diseases and
they make up around 20 per cent of Gross World Product," he said.

Dr Turton says Australia is the only first world country that has a
significant amount of tropical land mass, and yet investment in research does
not reflect this.

"Around half of Australia is tropical and the proportion is increasingly," he
said.

"But very little money goes into tropical medicine, compared to general
medicine."

Dr Turton says only 7 per cent of CSIRO's total budget goes into tropical
Australia.

He says the call for more tropical research is supported by a recent review
of Australia's innovation system.

Dr Turton says that for most Australians - who live in the southern half of
the continent - the spread of the tropics will actually mean more drought
because of the southward spread of the dry subtropical zone.

As humid temperate climate zones will be replaced by the dry subtropical
zone, cities like Sydney will get more rain in the summer but less rain
overall.

"Sydney will be more like Brisbane by the end of century," Dr Turton said.

He says the climate of Melbourne and parts of Tasmania will become more
Mediterranean, with a hot dry season and more rain in winter, until the
mid-latitude jet stream moves further south and rainfall misses Australia's
landmass altogether.

- ABC

c ABC 2009

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