Research Says Winter Won’t Exist in Australia in 2050

A tool that shows what the climate will be like in the future has recently been developed by a team of designers and scientists. The tool was intended to be able to show Australians what the climate would be like in the cities that they live in. However, this tool led to a discovery that no one was expecting. In as little as thirty years time, winter in Australia as we know it at the moment will be no more. This is another indication that climate change is having a far bigger effect on the planet than people actually realize.

The research was carried out in a partnership between the School of Art and Design and the Climate Change Institute which are both part of the Australian National University. The data that they used in their research was provided by the Bureau of Meteorology and Scientific Information for Land Owners. Once they had compiled all the data and reached their conclusions, then they knew they needed to present it in a way that would make the public take notice.

They decided to present the information by town so that it would resonate with local residents. The data was also presented in a very visual way so it was clear to see what changes in climate would be experienced in the coming years. A lot of color was used in the presentation and this made the information more interesting and easy to understand.

The Changing Seasons

The researchers were expecting to see warmer temperatures in the future, but not to the extent that a whole season would just disappear. When the projections about the future were made then there was no clear pattern of four seasons that we see today. There was certainly not a prolonged length of time that could have been described as winter. This is true for towns and cities all over Australia. In approximately thirty years time it appears as if Australia will only have three seasons. Spring and autumn will still exist but there will be a long period in the middle which the researchers called ‘new summer’. During these months the temperature will not fall much below 40 degrees Celsius.

Is This Research Reliable?

When considering reliability it is worth noting that similar studies have been carried out elsewhere in the world and the findings from these studies seem to back up what the Australian researchers have found. A web application was developed by a team in the United States that made similar projections of average temperatures and climate a number of years into the future. This application also focused on cities and towns and the changes that could be expected by the year 2080. This study also showed that there would be an increase in temperature and that the climate of most cities would change quite dramatically. One example that was given was the city of Washington D.C which will have a climate that is similar to the one that is found in Mississippi today.

What Does The Study Hope To Achieve?

There is little doubt that it is human behavior that has caused climate change to progress as quickly as it has done in that last few hundred years. Therefore, it makes sense that changing this behavior is one of the only ways that it can be slowed down or even halted altogether. The findings of this study are sure to make people take notice for two main reasons. The first is that the prospect of losing a whole season is something that many people would not think is possible. People should start to pay attention when such a bold statement is being made.

The second reason is that the findings of the study are presented in a way that focuses on the towns and cities where these people live. This makes it feel very personal to them and makes them think about what their actions may actually be doing to the place that they call home. For a lot of people, the thought of getting to the stage where there is a final winter could just be enough to make them take serious action to tackle the problem of climate change once and for all. Thirty years is still within the lifetime of a lot of people which makes the whole thing feel a lot more real.