Climate Change Makes Droughts in Australia Worse

Climate change is making drought conditions in southwest and southeast Australia worse, with serious ramifications for people’s health and the agriculture industry, a new paper has warned.

The Climate Council report states that since the mid-1990s, southeast Australia has experienced a 15 percent drop in rainfall during late autumn and early winter, with a 25 percent slump in average rainfall in April and May.

A drought that has gripped western Queensland and northern New South Wales since 2012 has put pressure on farmers and forced wildlife into starvation.

Projected decreases in average rainfall in winter and spring mean it will “likely be increasingly difficult to erase such rainfall deficits in the future” according to the Climate Council report, which cites data from the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology.

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