CLIMATE CHANGE: what can the NSW North Coast expect from 2020 onwards?

The NSW Baird Coalition Government's Dept. of Planning Industry and Environment published Climate Projections For NSW in November 2014.

It remains on the departmental website as current data.

Below are some of the mapping and observations within these Adapt NSW documents as they pertain to the NSW North Coast.

Given that: 

a) Australia has already warmed by just over 1°C since 1910 with most of that warming occurring in the last 60 years; 
b) in recent decades there has been the most sustained large-scale change in rainfall in the southern half of the continent since records began in 1900 and stream flows have been decreasing since the 1970s; 
c) the number of high value Forest Fire Danger Index days have been increasing in recent decades; and
d) the number of bushfire days the North Coast has experienced since the August 2019 start of the fire season has resulted in well over 1 million hectares of forest and farmland being burned out;

add to this the fact that significant land loss in places like the Lower Clarence Valley is likely to begin at only a 0.5m rise above mean sea level and, possibly the Adapt NSW regionally specific projections need to be reworked to include Bureau of Meteorology/CSIRO data from 2014 onwards. 

Perhaps then some uncomfortable questions can be resolved.

Is it possible that climate change is beginning to speed up across eastern Australia? 

Is 2019 likely to be an anomaly which has no effect on the published climate change projections or is it the new norm and some of the 2020-2039 mapping is now just digital junk?

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NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Annual Average Number of Days With Temperatures 
Greater Than 35 Degrees Celsius 

By 2030 maximum temperatures are projected to rise by 0.7 ºC and continue to rise by 1.9 ºC by 2070.....By 2030 the North Coast is projected to experience an average of 3 more days above 35 ºC per year and continue to rise to 9 days per year by 2070.......Summer will see the greatest changes in maximum temperatures, increasing by 2.1°C in the far future.

NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Average Rainfall

SPRING

SUMMER

In 2020-2039 rainfall is projected to decrease in winter [-6.1%] and to increase in autumn [+8.5%] and spring [+3.3%]. A raifall decrease of -2.8% is also predicted for summer rainfall.

NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Forest Fire Danger Index 

 SPRING

 SUMMER

The North Coast is expected to experience an increase in severe and average FFDI values in the near future and the far future.  The increases are projected in summer and spring. Although these changes in severe fire weather are relatively small in magnitude (up to one additional day every two years) they are projected to occur in prescribed burning periods (spring) and the peak fire risk season (summer).  

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