Media release no.
Rising temperatures, due to global warming, will have implications for many agricultural crops in the foreseeable future, an Agriculture Western Australia climatologist has warned. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now about 30 per cent more than it was 200 years ago, and this is beginning to warm the earth's surface. The real issue is the speed at which these changes are occurring. The twentieth century has been the warmest of the millennium and the 1990s were the warmest decade of the twentieth century. An average half a degree to a degree warmer over the next 30 years doesn't sound much, but the effects at the top and bottom of the range can be vital, particularly for crops that require accumulation of chill to set fruit, or those with high sensitivity to heat stress.