Australia’s climate in a four degree world

Abstract

What climate change would Australia see if global warming reaches 4°C on average (14°C global warming) above pre-industrial levels? This chapter describes projected changes in temperature, rainfall, potential evaporation, drought, snow cover and regional sea level with a focus on mean changes, ranges of uncertainty and the possible time evolution of the changes under such a scenario. As well as providing maps of changes and describing their limits and uncertainties, more detailed projections are shown for a set of selected localities. Together, this chapter and the next - on projected changes to extreme events in Australia (Braganza et al., 2013) - form the scientic foundation and provide th..