• Tasmania's climate
• Tasmania's emissions
• Climate change impact
• What can you do to earn your stars?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of international scientists set up by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations, provides objective advice on climate change and possible impacts associated with climate change.

The IPCC has noted some of the impacts climate change already had on the global environment. These observations include:

• sea levels rose by about 17 cm during the 20th Century.
• over the past 100 years, global temperatures have increased by almost three-quarters of a degree.
• mountain glaciers and snow cover on average have declined in both hemispheres, and the area affected by drought has increased since the 1970s.
• from 1990 to 2005, precipitation patterns have changed – with precipitation increasing in some areas of North and South America and Northern Europe but decreasing in areas of the Mediterranean and Southern Africa.
• heat waves have become more frequent over most land areas.
• that eleven of the years between 1995 and 2006 ranked among the 12 warmest years since record keeping began.

The 10 hottest years on record

There is increasing evidence of climate change impacts in Australia:

• Between 1910 and 2004, average temperatures across Australia rose 0.9°C.
• Since 1950 annual rainfall has declined in southern and eastern Australia and rainfall has increased in the northwest of the continent.
• Since 1973 extreme rainfall events have increased in north-eastern Australia.

Related documents

• Tasmanian Framework for Action on Climate Change - paper saver
• Tasmanian Framework for Action on Climate Change - full colour, presentation