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In many cases, however, such migration might not be possible because of unfavourable environmental parameters, geographical or human-made barriers and competition from species already in an area. There are several well documented cases of climate-induced shifts in the distribution of plants and animals in the northern hemisphere, but less information is available for southern hemisphere species.
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Marine species will also need to adapt to warmer ocean temperatures. Such species will need to follow their climatic envelopes by migrating to cooler and moister environments, usually uphill or southwards in the southern hemisphere. To estimate the effect of climate change on species, scientists use what they call a climatic envelope (sometimes also referred to as a bioclimatic envelope), which is the range of temperatures, rainfall and other climate-related parameters in which a species currently exists.Īs the climate warms, the geographic location of climatic envelopes will shift significantly, possibly even to the extent that species can no longer survive in their current locations. The number of extreme rainfall events-such as those leading to flooding-is also expected to increase, even though overall, most of the country is expected to become drier in the 21 st century. On a continent already as warm as Australia, such an increase could have major ecological impacts. CSIRO scientists predict that by 2030 average temperatures will rise above 1990 levels by around 0.7–0.9☌ in coastal areas, and around 1–1.2☌ in inland regions. In Australia the climate is expected to become significantly warmer. altered distributions of certain infectious diseases.increased climate variability, with changes in both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.decreased snow cover: satellite observations suggest that the area of the planet covered by snow has already declined by 10 per cent since the 1960s.more frequent extreme high maximum temperatures and less frequent extreme low minimum temperatures, and warmer winter conditions.The effects of increased CO 2 in the atmosphere and changing climatic conditions are expected to include: Note that the figures above use a compilation of both instrumental and proxy data.