Statistics And Research Methods : International Trends

Australia is a large country with diversity of climate across the country. The climate of Australia varies from east to west and north to south. Australia has various climate features across the country (Hansen et al. 2013). From deserts, semi desert or semi arid parts to tropical rain forests Australia have sea beaches and mountains. These varieties of geographical features in Australia had resulted in variation in the climate across the country. Presence of a major axis; i.e. Tropic of Capricorn across Australia divides the country into two region; tropical region and temperate region (Capstick et al. 2015).

In this assignment, the climate of Australia would be studied. The change in the climate of Australia over the past century would be explored. The impact of the change in the climate on Australia would be explored in the assignment. The assignment would also give an idea about the methods of collection of data to study the impact of change in climate in Australia over the century. The methods of analysis of data would also be mentioned in this assignment.

The problem statement of the research is to understand the change in climate of Australia over the past century and find its impact.

The aim of the research is to understand the changes that had taken place in the climate of Australia and find the impact of this change on Australia.

The objective of the research is as follows:

• To find the change in the climate of Australia over the last centaury
• To know the impact of the change in climate

The questions for the research are as follows:

• What is the change in the climate of Australia over the last century?
• What is the impact of the change in climate?

The average change in the temperature and other climatic condition of any country is defined as the climatic change of the country. Major changes in the climatic condition develop concern for the meteorologists (Haddad et al. 2015). These changes create several impacts on the ecosystem of the country and disturb the ecological balance of the nature. As per the viewpoint of Capstick et al. (2015), it was seen that change in climatic structure of the country results to various natural calamities. This includes increase in the frequency of landslides, forest fires, floods, storms, droughts and other natural calamities.

As per the viewpoint of Haddad et al. (2015), it was seen that increase in natural calamities like floods and droughts over the years would create a heavy impact on the country as a whole. It affects the health condition of the people of the country, it affects the economy of the country and it also creates a heavy impact of the political and social factors of the country. The change in the climatic structure of Australia results to increase in mortality rate, decrease in the amount of food production, and decrease in the economy of the country ad increase in poverty of the people.

According to the viewpoint of Franks et al. (2013), it was found that in the beginning of 21^st century the major concern regarding the climatic structure of the company was its drastic change over the last century. According to the report released by CSIRO in the year 2013, it was found that the temperature in Australia had been rising continuously and there would be increase in the temperature and loner fire seasons due to the change in climate. The dramatic increase of the temperature had especially affected the temperature at night. It was seen that there was an increase in the temperature of night which had reduced the difference in temperature of the between day and night (Capstick et al. 2015). This reduction in the difference of temperature had resulted in climatic change of the country and it had created a great impact on the health of the Australians.

Emission of carbon dioxide had increased in the 20^th century. Cutting down of trees and increase in forest fires had resulted in decreasing in greenery of the country (Franks et al. 2013). I had resulted to increase in the pollution level of the country and increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This had contributed to the global warming and increased the average temperature of the country. It had also increased the sea level of the oceans surrounding the continent. The increase in the sea level of the country is a severe threat to the country as Australia is surrounded by its coastline (Tol 2013). In the year 2011, the government of Australia had ordered to decrease the emission of carbon dioxide and it was seen that there was a reduction of the emission of carbon dioxide by 11% on comparing with the emission in the year 2008 (Haddad et al. 2015).

The pattern of precipitation is also affected by the change in the climatic structure. As per the viewpoint of Pittock (2013), it was seen that there was a decrease in the rainfall by 10 to 20% since the year 1970 in the south western region of Australia. The south eastern region of Australia has received moderate rainfall. The rainfall pattern had become heavy and infrequent. It was also seen that rainfall was more common in summer than in winter, which had affected the seasonal crops of the country. Heavy rainfall had resulted in floods in the country and has also contributed in increasing the sea level of the country (Haddad et al. 2015). This is a major threat to the coastal cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. The change in climate had also resulted in global warming, which had in turn affected the ozone layer (Franks et al. 2013). Ozone hole over the Australian subcontinent is a severe threat to the inhabitants of the sub continent. Thus, the change in the climate of Australian subcontinent had created various impacts on Australia that would be studied in this research.

The methodology of the research includes collection of data for the research and analyzing the data to understand the effect of change in climate in Australia. The process of collection of the data involves the method of survey whose description would be provided in this part.

Table 1: Gantt chart of the research

(Source: created by author)

The process of the research includes collection of primary data for the survey. Questionnaire would be framed for collecting the data of the research. The samples would be selected from the concerned population and form the samples of the research. The collected data will be analyzed with the help of statistical tests to understand the impact of change in climate of Australia.

Primary data would be collected for the research by the methods of survey. Questionnaire would be framed and survey methods would be used to collect information regarding the climate in Australia over the last century. The meteorologist would be asked a set of questions for the average temperatures in Australia during the every season, the amount of rainfall in every season, the change in economy and agriculture of the country and the changes in health of the Australians during the last century. Quantitative data will be used in the research and close ended questions will be used in the survey.

Methods of statistics like methods of frequency, descriptive statistics, measures of central tendency and correlation would be used to analyze the data collected through survey. Analyzing these methods would give an idea about the changes that had taken place in the climatic structure of the company and the impact it had created in various aspects of Australia.

Various ethics must be considered while conducting the survey for the research. The researcher must be honest about the approach of the research. He should clearly state the respondents about the aim and purpose of the research. The researcher must not force the respondents to response to his questions. The researcher must also maintain the privacy of the respondent and keep the information confidential. The researcher should not alter and tamper the data collected from the survey and must use it in the original format.

It is expected that change in the climatic structure of Australia over the last century has affected the health of the Australians to a great extent. The economy of the country is also expected to be affected by the change in the climatic structure of the country. This is because the climatic structure of the country influences the food production which in turn affects the economy of Australia. The change in climatic structure is expected to cause a severe threat to the environment in the coming years. Depletion of ozone layer and degradation of the forest lands is expected to increase the speed of change in climatic structure in Australia in upcoming years.

Capstick, S., Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., Pidgeon, N. and Upham, P., 2015. International trends in public perceptions of climate change over the past quarter century. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6(1), pp.35-61.

Franks, P.J., Adams, M.A., Amthor, J.S., Barbour, M.M., Berry, J.A., Ellsworth, D.S., Farquhar, G.D., Ghannoum, O., Lloyd, J., McDowell, N. and Norby, R.J., 2013. Sensitivity of plants to changing atmospheric CO2 concentration: from the geological past to the next century. New Phytologist,197(4), pp.1077-1094.

Haddad, N.M., Brudvig, L.A., Clobert, J., Davies, K.F., Gonzalez, A., Holt, R.D., Lovejoy, T.E., Sexton, J.O., Austin, M.P., Collins, C.D. and Cook, W.M., 2015. Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Science Advances, 1(2), p.e1500052.

Hansen, M.C., Potapov, P.V., Moore, R., Hancher, M., Turubanova, S.A., Tyukavina, A., Thau, D., Stehman, S.V., Goetz, S.J., Loveland, T.R. and Kommareddy, A., 2013. High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change. Science, 342(6160), pp.850-853.

Pittock, A.B., 2013. Climate change: the science, impacts and solutions. Routledge.

Tol, R.S., 2013. The economic impact of climate change in the 20th and 21st centuries. Climatic change, 117(4), pp.795-808.