ACE tackles Tasmania’s climate future

One of the exciting projects ACE is involved in is Climate Future for Tasmania. This project, now in its final year, uses the climate history of Tasmania, world climate models, future climate scenarios and a huge amount of computer processing to make rational projections of Tasmania’s future climate. This project is generating new climate information on climate change in the 21st century for local communities in Tasmania. The new climate information has been 'dynamically downscaled' from six global climate models, each using two of the emission scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to generate climate projections for Tasmania to the end of this century. The project is focusing on the information interests of Tasmanian communities, businesses, industries and governments through analysis of general climate, agriculture, water and catchments, and extreme events. Emerging results of analyses suggest that climate change will affect different parts of Tasmania differently, and that Tasmania, because of its geographical position and close proximity to the Southern Ocean, will have smaller increases in average temperature than mainland Australia. The emerging results show that the average temperature changes over Tasmania by 2100 are projected to be about plus 2.8°C (1990 to 2090), which is slightly less than the projected global average of 3.4°C for the same period. Total annual rainfall over the entire state is projected to remain unchanged, but the spatial and seasonal patterns of rainfall appear to evolve away from our current climate. The Climate Futures for Tasmania project still has a way to go (it’s due to finish its analyses by the end of 2010), but when these analyses are completed, Tasmania will have a world first: climate change projections at a detailed geographical scale that can be used by Governments and across the community to guide decisions and investment.
 

Authorised by the CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre October 2019.

The ACE CRC was established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program.

core participants

 

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other participants

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