Image: "Lake Hume at 4%," 2007. Credit: suburbanbloke/flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

Australia is getting hotter, the seas surrounding it are rising, and rainfall patterns are changing.

Those are the take-aways from the "State of the Climate" report released on Monday by top scientists in Australia. "There is greater than 90 percent certainty that increases in greenhouse gas emissions" -- carbon dioxide and methane created by human activity -- "have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century," according to the snapshot of climate trends, which was a joint effort of the Australian Bureau of Meterology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). "Our observations clearly demonstrate that climate change is real."

The past 10 years have been Australia's warmest since record-keeping began, with the country's mean temperature has risen by around 1.3 degrees F (about 0.7 degrees C) since 1960. Although every region is warming, the trend varies across the continent, with some regions experiencing total hikes of 2.7-3.6 degrees F (1.5-2 degrees C).

The average number of days with record hot temperatures has also increased since 1960, state the researchers, from about 15 in 1960 to over 30 in 2009. Record cold days have declined almost as sharply.

While average rainfall has remained steady, says the report, rainfall is decreasing in all of the Australia's major centers of population in the south and east.

Australia's coastlines are changing, as well: Since 1993, sea levels have risen 0.059-0.118 inches (1.5-3mm) a year in the nation's south and east, according to this report, and 0.028-0.039 inches (7-10mm) annually in the north and west. These phenomena are consistent with sea level rises observed around the globe, suggesting that local conditions alone (such as coastal erosion) can't take all the credit from global climate change.

To put these seemingly tiny figures in perspective, consider that sea levels have risen, and will continue to rise, even as more people migrate to live along coastlines. Over 630 million people around the world already live within 30 feet of sea level, and demographic trends suggest that upwards of 3 billion people will be living at or near coastlines around the world by 2025 (just 15 years away).

So it won't take much more upward change for all these people to be living in the sea, instead of at sea level. (Barring massive spending on dikes and levies that even the richest nations seem unable to rally around.)

If and as these temperature and rainfall changes persist, Australia's problems could mean more expensive food prices around the world, since it is a major exporter of meat and grains.