Climate change threatens Australia's snowy Alps - Forbes India
Climate Change Threatens Australia's Snowy Alps - Forbes India
Modelling by scientists at the Australian National University showed even with mitigation efforts, snow in the country will become much rarer
Young trekker on a hiking trail passing a snow-capped massif in the Australian, in Mooserboden, Austria. Photo: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images
Climate change could make Australia's annual snow season more than a month shorter, placing a unique alpine ecosystem under threat, new research warned Wednesday.
Modelling by scientists at the Australian National University showed even with mitigation efforts, snow in the country will become much rarer.
Less than one percent of the mostly dry and dusty nation is defined as alpine.
That parcel of land in Australia's southeast -- scarcely as big as some Outback farms -- is home to unique flora and fauna, from snow gum trees to mountain pygmy possums.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.