Keep Winter Cool - Australia

Global warming 101

Climate change is a real threat to our environment and our economy - and a big concern for all Australians who love snow sports and to those who work in the alpine industry who count on dependable snow for a living.

Global warming happens when heat-trapping greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere - a bit like a down parka keeps body heat from escaping into space. We need greenhouse gases, in fact without them the Earth would be a frozen wasteland. The problem is that things are getting out of balance.

Nineteen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, the top 10 since 1990. Models developed by scientists predict temperature increases faster than anything the world has ever seen in terms of temperature change.

Scientists have been studying the problem now for several decades. While they still don't know every detail, nearly all agree that increases in greenhouse gases is a major factor.

In 1988 the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program established an 'Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change'. This body produces regular reports dealing with the science of climate change, with their most recent report, the Third Assessment Report, released in 2001. This report was prepared and reviewed by several hundred of the world's leading climate scientists. Their findings include:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is 30 per cent higher today than in pre-industrial times and is higher than it has been for at least 420,000 years.
The current rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is unprecedented in the last 20,000 years.
Burning fossil fuels is the main source of human-created carbon dioxide emissions.
The concentration of many other greenhouse gasses has also increased significantly since pre-industrial times, also as a result of human activities.
The Earth's global average surface temperature increased by 0.6 degrees Centigrade over the course of the 20th century.
Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

A Climatic Research Unit established in the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom is widely recognised as one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and man-made climate change. It has complied a demonstration site showing the patterns of global temperature change across the world from 1900 to 2000. Visit the demonstration site.

Even a few degrees of global warming will have a significant impact on our climate and within Australia we are already experiencing the effects of climate change. A few degrees of global warming will lead to more heat waves and fewer frosts. More fires and droughts are expected in some regions and more rain and flooding in others. Alpine areas are expected to have less snow cover, tropical cyclones may become stronger and sea levels may rise. In Victoria, the average maximum and minimum temperatures have increased in every decade since 1950, with extreme rainfall events having increased over the last century and El Nino drought events becoming more frequent.

A partnership was formed in 2002 between the Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian government agencies, together with the Alpine Resorts Co-ordinating Council and Australian Ski Areas Association, to fund a CSIRO assessment and modelling of climate change impacts on snow conditions in Australia. The CSIRO report, which was completed in 2003, recorded a weak decline in maximum snow depths evident at three of the four Australian alpine sites with 50 years' of data. The decline in snow depths was thought to be the result of warmer temperatures reducing the snow to rainfall ratio and increasing the snow melt rate, with warming over the past 35 years appearing to be greater at lower elevations.

The CSIRO computed snow condition scenarios and made projections for each Australian alpine resort. Predicted impacts included decreasing average seasons and reductions of peak snow depths. The study also considered snow making potential and concluded that with sufficient investment in snow making, the Australian ski industry will be able to manage the projected impact of climate change until at least 2020.

The above information has been sourced from the following sources, which also provide a range of additional detailed information for those interested:
· The Australian Greenhouse Office
· The Victorian Greenhouse Strategy
· The North American Keep Winter Cool
· The Victorian Alpine Resorts 2020 Strategy