See how climate change has impacted the world since your childhood

Updated

Global warming is already changing the world before our eyes — let's see what has happened in your lifetime.

When were you born?

From top to bottom, these stripes use Bureau of Meteorology data to show how temperatures have changed in Australia since 1910. The colours indicate how much the average temperature of each year is above or below the average temperature from 1961 to 1990.

A blue line means that year was below average; red means it was above average. As you can see there is a pretty clear trend happening — from cool to warm — over the past century. Over this time the world has warmed 0.81 degrees Celsius, and Australia has warmed even more, hitting 1.52 degrees above average last year (2019).

But what about in your lifetime?

You're part of a generation of Australians whose childhood has already been impacted by climate change. So how different was it to that of your parents? Well we don't know how old your parents are, but on average Australians have children at about 30, so here's what life has been like for someone 30 years older than you.

This is what's happened in your life. From {birthYear} to 2019.

This is what's happened in their life. From {birthYear} to 2019.

Let's show it in a slightly different way. The colours mean the same thing, but bars going left show a temperature below average, and bars going right show a temperature above average.

In the year you were born, Australia was {birthDateAverage} degrees {birthDateAverageAboveBelow} average, or put another way {coolerThanHottest} degrees cooler than Australia's hottest year on record, which is the one we've just experienced, when temperatures hit 1.52 degrees above average.

In the year they were born, Australia was {birthDateAverage} degrees {birthDateAverageAboveBelow} average, or put another way {coolerThanHottest} degrees cooler than Australia's hottest year on record, which is the one we've just experienced, when temperatures hit 1.52 degrees above average.

But what does this even mean? Well let's expand it out a bit. Think back to when you were six. By this point you've seen a few summers, probably run through a few sprinklers, burnt your feet on hot pavement — six-year-old you knows what hot feels like.

But what does this even mean? Well let's expand it out a bit. Aged six, your parents have probably run through a few sprinklers, burnt their feet on hot pavement — they probably know what hot feels like.

Well, not compared to a six-year-old today, you don't. They've lived through four of the five hottest years in Australia; you were {fiveYearAge} years old before you experienced the warming they lived through in the first year of their life.

Well, not compared to a six-year-old today, they don't. Today's six-year-olds have lived though four of the five hottest years in Australia; This means your parents likely didn't experience warming like this until they were about {fiveYearAge} years old.

But still — 1.52 degrees doesn't sound like that much of a change, does it? That's because it's easy to imagine every day is just 1 degree warmer, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

Now we're going to show you how this warming has already affected your life, or you can skip ahead and see what is in store for the future if we continue on burning fossil fuels as we always have.

Small increases in average temperature translate to big increases in the number of extremely hot days, and those hot days have a big impact.

High temperatures are part and parcel of living in Australia, but there's a point where humans struggle to survive.

Many parts of the world, including parts of Australia, already experience this kind of heat. A study looking into deaths around the world from extreme heat found that in 2000, 30.6 per cent of the world's population were exposed to 20 or more days when temperatures reached this point, which they called the "deadly threshold".

And when temperatures head towards this threshold it starts to impact the ability of people to lead normal lives. Economic productivity decreases, and the sorts of activities that are a central part of Australian life — like playing sport or heading to the beach — are affected.

As the globe continues to warm, this sort of heat will spread, affecting more and more people for longer and longer periods of time.

And even well below this threshold, extreme heat already has deadly consequences. The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, which claimed the lives of 173 Australians, are etched into the national consciousness.

But in the heatwave that led up to the fires, the number of deaths soared. In Victoria 374 more people died in the week of January 26, compared to the average for that time of year.

That's not to underestimate the impact of bushfires — that innocuous sounding 1.52 degree rise has seen bushfire risk increase across the continent. When the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action approached the Federal Government in April they were drawing on decades of data showing that fire conditions are getting worse.

So it's hotter, and there's a greater risk of bushfires, but has Australia been getting drier? I mean, there were droughts when you were a kid, right? Well Australia hasn't been getting drier overall, but where the rain is falling is changing and that is already having a big impact.

In the north of the country over summer, we're actually getting more rain, but in the south where most Australians live — and where the majority of our food is produced — the country is drying out.

And the way the rain falls is changing. Because the atmosphere can hold more water in warmer temperatures, when it does rain we're getting more high-intensity, extreme rain events — the ones that are associated with flash flooding. Every degree of warming creates a 7 per cent increase in the intensity of those rain events.



So just in your lifetime you can already see a change in how the weather in Australia works. This is the reality of climate change — all the ingredients that are required for natural disasters start to collide with increasing regularity.

What could that look like? Well, those extreme events that used to be irregular occurrences become the normal experience of living in Australia.

And for some Australians that's already the case. Remember that six-year-old we compared you to before? Their life has been dominated by drought, as temperature records continue to break.

For them, fire season starts at the beginning of spring and rainforests traditionally considered safe go up in flames, rewriting the rule book on how fires must be fought. They live in a world where conditions are so extreme that fire seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres overlap, stretching resources at a time when they're needed most.

In the aftermath of these disasters, politicians often talk about how you can't put one event down to climate change. But the catastrophic fires that are burning across the country have brought this link into sharp focus. December 2019 was the hottest on record, 3.21 degrees above average, and 2019 is Australia's driest year on record.

As the temperature has increased, so has the ability of scientists to determine whether specific events are linked to climate change. They can now model how likely a specific event would be to occur under historical conditions, compared to the record temperatures we're experiencing.

But it takes time to do these sums. While recently completed modelling shows that the extreme heat that played a role in Queensland's 2018 fires was made more likely by climate change, we won't know exactly how much impact it has had on the current fires until that modelling is done for them.

But in November, when he was asked to speak about the current fires Professor Ross Bradstock, the Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong, didn't mince words.

"We are now in uncharted territory, we've gone over the 1 million-hectare mark, and for the forests and woodlands in the eastern half of the state this is unprecedented," he said.

"It exceeds major fire seasons such as Christmas 2001, January 1994. We are approaching other significant fire seasons such as the alpine fires in 2003 in Victoria, and again in 2006 which were massive blazes.

"The most concerning thing to emphasise is it's not over, we are not even into summer yet."

Professor Bradstock says these fires are a warning light that fits with the scenario predicted by climate modellers.

"We're in a transition from talking over the horizon about climate models telling us about a hypothetical future, to actually experiencing changes that are consistent with some of those projections."

This all sounds pretty full-on, but what we're experiencing this summer is just the beginning of how climate change will hurt us.

To see how, let's look to the future...

What about a child born in Australia today — what will their life look like?

We turned to Monash University to help explore modelling that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses to predict how climate change will impact the world in the future.

The IPCC says that in the next 10 years the world must begin to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. If we continue to use fossil fuels the way we currently do, modelling from the IPCC shows we will be on track for a 4-degree increase in temperatures this century.

That would mean that by the time a child born today is 20, the 2018-19 summer we sweltered through would be considered a mild Australian summer.

By their 30th, the entire Barrier Reef will likely be facing bleaching events every year. This is far more frequent than the five to 10 years it needs to recover from one event.

The start of spring will no longer be a time of anticipation for a summer ahead. Instead it will herald the arrival of conditions like those that led to the latest fires.

And when they turn 50, they'll probably be celebrating indoors. Remember those "deadly threshold" temperatures, beyond which humans struggle to survive? They're no longer isolated events. In this scenario, by 2100, 73.9 per cent of the world's population will be facing at least 20 days a year of deadly heat and humidity.

And before you think that 20 days of this sort of heat is manageable, that's just a minimum. For vast swathes of the globe, these temperatures will be the norm — and humans will have to learn how to live in an environment too hot for them.

Even Sydney and Melbourne will be facing summers where temperatures top 50 degrees.

But what if the world actually makes the changes needed to considerably cut emissions? The best case scenario IPCC modelling shows that if we cut emissions to limit warming to 1.5 degrees — as set out under the Paris Agreement — the future would be very different.

It would still be hotter and more dangerous than the present. Warming for the next 10 years is already locked in, but after that changes start to make a difference.

When a child born today turns 20, summer will likely be pretty similar to the summer of 2018 — hot and dangerous, but cooler than if we'd done nothing.

In this scenario they may still have the opportunity to visit a living Great Barrier Reef. Keeping the increase in global temperatures at or below 1.5 degrees means it's more likely a portion of the reef will be able to survive the regular bleaching events, giving it a base to recover from and adapt to higher temperatures.

And by the time they turn 50, if globally we had managed to halt our emissions quickly back in the 2020s, the temperature will have begun to stabilise. We'll still be facing extreme heat, but at a far more manageable level than if we'd done nothing to halt climate change.

By 2100, 47.6 per cent of the world's population will be facing more than 20 days per year of deadly temperatures — and far fewer people will be facing a world where those sorts of temperatures are the norm.

To achieve this scenario, things need to change quickly. Global emissions are still rising.

While the Federal Government has committed to a reduction target of 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, the IPCC says current promises are nowhere near enough to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

At home, Australia emits less than 1.24 per cent of global emissions, but so do most countries. More than 170 countries emit less than Australia each year, and combined, this group of countries emits more than any of the largest emitters — 40 per cent of all emissions come from countries that each emit less than 2 per cent of global emissions. So, even if the major emitters decarbonise, it won't be enough.

Despite our high per-capita emissions, and our role as a major exporter of fossil fuels, high public support for action on climate change suggests this is possible.

The Australia Talks National Survey found that 79 per cent of us think Australia has a responsibility to take action on climate change, even if the biggest emitting countries don't follow suit.

And while the issue has divided our federal politicians for a decade, a majority of both Coalition and Labor voters want action.

So the will is there, but time is running out to find our way.

This is part of a series from the ABC News Story Lab on climate change. Our next piece looks at what we could do with the money Australians have said they're willing to pay to stop climate change.

If you'd like to be notified about future stories from Story Lab, including on climate change, then subscribe to hear about interactives, visualisations and good reads from the ABC News Story Lab. (Max. 1 email a week, we promise.)

This piece has been made with the assistance of the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.

The climate stripes are inspired by the work of climate scientist Professor Ed Hawkins. Future warming stripes are the ensemble mean of a range (between 19 and 39 models) of CMIP5 Global Climate Models models retrieved using the KNMI Climate Explorer. One run was used for each climate model.

Credits

Reporter/producer: Tim Leslie

Developer: Joshua Byrd

Developer/designer: Nathan Hoad

Illustrator: Emma Machan

Editor: Cristen Tilley

Topics: climate-change, environment, australia

First posted