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Climate Change really impacting our world?

Climate change is a world-wide issue that needs to be addressed now. It is the change in the climate
compared that is out of its normal phases. In this report by analysing temperatures of two weather
stations allows one to be able to determine trends in the data and thus can determine if there is a
change in the climate in these two areas and then draw conclusions in terms of what is to come if
nothing does change.

Before beginning it is important to consider the contexts which the two weather stations that will be
examined and better understand the data. All the data was retrieved from Bureau of Meteorology
which also has no agenda to record invalid or skewed results (Bom.gov.au, 2017).

Table 1 Defining Characteristics of Study Locations. (Basic Climatological Station Metadata, 2017)

Characteristics Sydney Airport Bathurst

Altitude / m above sea level 6 713
Hemisphere Southern Southern
Special features Next to a large body of water
i.e. ocean.
Classification of climate East coast latitude Subtropical

Based of the above Sydney Airport should find that the temperatures have less deviation from the
median temperature due to the large body of water that is located next to it compared to Bathurst
which does not have this and is higher in terms of altitude.

Table 2: Gradient Means

Data 1960-1990 1991-2017 1960-1990 1991-2017

(January) (January) (July) (July)
Gradient of mean -0.02299 0.050427 0.005913 0.045006
minimums
(Bathurst)
Gradient of mean 0.05139 0.082357 0.01647 -0.02363
maximums
(Bathurst)
Gradient of mean 0.046895 0.039805 0.062186 0.025956
minimums
(Sydney)
Gradient of mean 0.008145 0.069292 -0.00976 0.061407
maximum
(Sydney)

All data points had a Grubbs test performed with a 5% confidence and none were found to be
outliers. The gradient of the means was calculated by via linest function which serves as a means of
determining a straight line and thus a trend. This method ideally removes and or limits the impact of
outliers on the determining of the trend. In the above (table 2) in all cases except Bathurst in July
when comparing the gradients of means within the same month but different years there is an
increase rather than stable and or fall and in some cases by an order of magnitude. This suggests that
the climate change has impacted both stations by increasing the temperatures of the locations and
will continue to do so. Though the numbers of gradients are small it still suggests that if nothing is
done to combat this all the temperatures will continue to rise.

Table 3: Number of Years above the Mean 1960-1990 Temperature Since 1991

January July
Sydney Airport (min) 24/26 26/26
Sydney Airport (max) 22/26 20/26
Bathurst (min) 16/26 22/26
Bathurst (max) 20/26 23/26

If there was no climate change, there would not be a close to 50/50 distribution in terms of above
and below the mean of 1960-1990 temperature. However, in all cases (table 3) they are all
significantly above the 50% mark even the one closest to the 50% distribution is at roughly 60%
(Bathurst min, January). This demonstrates that the climate is changing and is heating up consistently.

When considering the data and the patterns determined it is can be understood that places that are close to
places of large bodies of water are found to have raised temperatures and this means places without this large
body of water also increase in temperature. Moreover, Bathurst is a place that is higher up in altitude and this
should be colder than places closer to sea level. Since Bathurst has demonstrated a consistent rise in
temperature since 1990-2017 it suggests places of high altitude will have an increase in temperature.
Therefore, based off the trends at both Sydney and Bathurst and the climates they represent it is a fair to say
there would be a similar trend in all places around the world.

This fits with what is happening in Australia world model as provided by National Centers for Environmental
Information. Where Australia has had its mean temperature raised by one degree since 1910 (Bom.gov.au,
2017) and that worldwide increase in temperature because of climate change and the hottest years being
within the past 19 years (Ncdc.noaa.gov, 2017). This includes the 2016 global annual land surface temperature
being 1.43oC above the 20th century average(Ncdc.noaa.gov, 2017. The figure below highlights the validity of
the extrapolation and how climate change has impacted the world with the areas with increased temperature
in red.

Figure 1: (Land & Ocean Temperature Percentiles Jan-Dec 2016, 2017)

Based off the data collected regarding gradients and number of years above the mean of the 1960-1990 years
one can see that the trend is that on average climates across the world are increasing and the claim that
climate change is unfounded is untrue and has no basis based on the overwhelming statistical data and the
worldwide recorded temperatures that also have no reason to have results skewed up or down.

Three other climate elements to look at could be the amount of precipitation as described in Global Climate
Report Annual 2016(Ncdc.noaa.gov, 2017. This is shown that due to the change in temperature and other
factors there are anomalies in terms of how much rain a place receives for example New Zealand due to the
many lows has had lots of rainfall whilst places like Finland have had the opposite it has been the driest it has
been for 55 years.

Another element affected by climate change is sea level. It has been rising particularly rapidly since the loss of
ice sheet mass loss beginning since 1993(The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2017). This will continue to do so even if
the temperature does stabilise as there is a time where there is adjustment to the warmer climate.

Lastly the climate change has also impacted on ocean characteristics. The ocean has increased in acidity and
lowered dissolved oxygen levels and over time has increased in the amount of heat absorbed and that was
found to be 50% above the previous calculations which has led to warmest ocean surface temperatures
observed (The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2017.
References

Basic Climatological Station Metadata. (2017). Bureau of Meterology, p.1.

Basic Climatological Station Metadata. (2017). Bureau of Meterology p.1.

Ncdc.noaa.gov. (2017). Global Climate Report - Annual 2016 | State of the Climate | National Centers for
Environmental Information (NCEI). [online] Available at: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201613
[Accessed 20 Aug. 2017].

Land & Ocean Temperature Percentiles Jan-Dec 2016. (2017). [image] Available at:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201613 [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].

Bom.gov.au. (2017). State of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology. [online] Available at:
http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].

The Copenhagen Diagnosis. (2017). Sydney: UNSW, pp.37-41.