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The Country Hour’s Hobart presenter, Anna Vidot, reports today that while our pollies have been doing very much what pollies do, more than 70 Australian scientists reviewing ‘The Maritime Climate Change in Australia Report Card‘ believe Australia’s marine environment has already been affected by climate change.

The Report Card was compiled from a year’s work by more than 70 Australian scientists from 35 different institutions and it is the first edition of what will be a biennial guide on maritime climate change effects.

One of the project leaders, Dr Alistair Hobday from the CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship in Hobart, says:

“The report is a comprehensive look at the known and expected effects of climate change, and the gaps in knowledge that need to be filled..

There’s very high confidence in a number of areas that we have already seen the effects of climate change.

So for people thinking that climate change is something that’s going to happen in the future, this report card shows clearly that we’ve already experienced significant impacts.”

Strong Evidence

  • ocean temperatures have warmed about three-quarters of a degree in the past 80 years
  • sea levels have risen 20 centimetres in the last 100 years
  • the East Australia Current which runs along the east coast of Australia is pushing about 350 kilometres further south
  • there are records showing the temperature is changing from a whole range of stations around Australia


The contentious question is how much humans can do to change this climate?