AUSTRALIA bakes under hottest decade on record

Australia experienced its hottest decade on record from 2000 to 2009 due to global warming, the nation's bureau of meteorology said as annual summer bushfires again burn drought lands and destroy homes. The average temperature in Australia over the past 10 years was 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average. And 2010 is forecast to be even hotter, with temperatures likely to be between 0.5 and 1 degrees average.

"We're getting these increasingly warm temperatures, not just for Australia but globally. Climate change, global warming is clearly continuing. We're in the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean and what that means for Australia and global temperatures is that 2010 is likely to be another very warm year - perhaps even the warmest on record,"sai bureau climatologist David Jones.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett used the report to attack opposition politicians for blocking the government's key climate policy, a carbon emissions trading scheme aimed at reducing greenhouses gases causing global warming. "Australia is one of the hottest and driest inhabited places on earth and our environment and economy will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change" said Garrett. "Today's statement finds that the patterns of the last year and the decade are consistent with global warming. It (passing the ETS) is in the national interest of the world," he said.

The government has promised to reintroduce its ETS legislation to parliament in February, a move which may trigger an early election in 2010 if the legislation is again defeated. An election is due in late 2010.

The year 2009 will be remembered for "extreme bushfires, dust-storms, lingering rainfall deficiencies, areas of flooding and record-breaking heatwaves," said the bureau. In fact, 2009 was Australias second warmest year on record, with the annual mean temperature 0.90 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, driven by three record breaking heatwaves that caused Australias most deadly bushfires, killing 173 people.

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