The Climate Council released a report on 5 Feb 2019 entitled Weather Gone Wild: Climate change – fuelled extreme weather in 2018.
The report highlights some worrying trends, none of which are really surprising; namely that both on a global and local scale temperatures in general are increasing and that extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity than in previous years.
Extreme weather events are manifested through extreme temperatures and heatwaves, drought, bushfires, intense rainfall and flooding, cyclones and storms. Apart from the increases in individual events we are witnessing compounded extreme events, where we see multiple events occurring in short spaces of time, each other leading to increased impacts. For example, drought affected areas being subject to extreme rainfall events can see greater impacts to the soil through erosion or drought affected areas in combination with thunderstorms are more at risk of bushfire events.
The cause of this increasing trend of extreme weather is climate change. Industry is well placed to help ameliorate the impacts of climate change through its products and this is a great opportunity for industry to promote and support. However, in the meantime industry is susceptible to the impacts of climate change as manifested through extreme weather events.
Read more at Nursery & Garden Industry Australia (Chris O'Connor)
