RAINFALL RECORDS have not only been smashed in Hobart in the past 24 hours, they have been almost tripled, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Meteorology.
Climate Councillor and international climate scientist Professor Will Steffen said Hobart had been hit with extreme rainfall and severe wind conditions, with 129.2 millimetres (mm) of rain falling in the city in just 24 hours, almost three times the previous May record of 47mm.
“Extreme rainfall like this would have only hit Tasmania only a few times in the last 100 years, so what we are seeing in Hobart today is very significant,” he said.
“It is just extraordinary to see a record be broken by this much.”
“This heavy rainfall is yet another reminder of the impacts of intensifying climate change. Extreme weather events like Hobart’s torrential rainfall are now occurring in a warmer atmosphere that is packed with more energy and more moisture.”
Professor Steffen urged Australia to continue its transition to clean, affordable and reliable renewable energy and storage technology in a bid to lower the nation’s rising greenhouse gas pollution levels and tackle climate change.
“Unless we move away from ageing, unreliable and polluting fossil fuels to cut our rising carbon pollution levels, our atmosphere will continue to grow more volatile and unpredictable, resulting in more intensifying extreme weather events, such as the one unfolding in Tasmania,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the Federal Government’s response to intensifying extreme weather events remains at the bottom of the national agenda, after Tuesday’s Federal Budget failed to deliver funding for measures to tackle worsening climate change and to accelerate our renewables and storage boom alive.”
“The solutions are here now, and while our states and territories lead the charge on renewables and storage, we need the Federal Government to quit kicking the climate can down the road and start moving the nation towards an energy future it can be proud of.”
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