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Climate Change and its Causes

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Climate change – a definition

Climate change is a change in climate patterns due to an increase in the Earth’s temperature caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – largely from burning fossil fuels.

Climate change is a global issue that may have big impacts on the water cycle.

What causes climate change?

Science suggests that climate change is caused by increases in greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are a natural part of the atmosphere. They soak up and project heat from the Sun, and ensure the Earth's temperature stays at a level necessary to support life.

The problem is that human activities like burning fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and natural gas) are increasing the gases in the atmosphere that trap heat, which is contributing to a hotter and drier climate.

More information:

Melbourne Water’s climate change study

Our 2005 Climate Change Study (PDF, 1.3mb) found that climate change would have the following likely outcomes for the Melbourne region:

  • Increased average and summer temperatures
  • Reduced annual rainfall
  • Increased evaporation
  • Reduced streamflow and yield in our catchments
  • More extreme events – with more hot days, more dry days and increased rainfall intensity during storm events.

Climate change and drought

Although drought is a natural part of our highly variable climate, climate change can make this more extreme.

With climate change, droughts last longer and are more severe. We need to take this into account when assessing and planning for the impacts of climate change on the water cycle.

More information:

Downloads

You will need Adobe Acrobat to access the above PDF documents.