INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

Australia has the sixth highest land area of all countries in the world at nearly 8 million square kilometres. It is exceeded only by Brazil, China, the United States of America, Canada and Russia. Tables 1.15 and 1.16 show the area of Australia relative to that of other continents and countries.

1.15 AREA OF CONTINENTS
		'000 sq km
Continents
	Asia	44 900
	Africa	30 300
	North America	24 700
	South America	17 800
	Antarctica	14 000
	Europe	9 900
	Australia and Oceania	8 500
Total landmass		150 100
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

1.16 AREA OF SELECTED COUNTRIES
	'000 sq km
COUNTRIES (SEVEN LARGEST)
Russia	17 075
Canada	9 971
United States of America	9 809
China	9 556
Brazil	8 512
Australia	7 692
India	3 204
SELECTED OTHER COUNTRIES
Indonesia	1 904
France	547
Papua New Guinea	462
Japan	377
Germany	357
Malaysia	330
Philippines	299
New Zealand	268
United Kingdom	242
Timor-Leste	14
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

Table 1.17 shows global and continental temperature anomalies from 1910 to 2010. Globally, and for all continents, the temperature deviation increases in each decade from the 1980s to the 2000s (compared with the average temperature between 1961 and 1990). For individual years, from 1990 to 2010, all global temperature deviations, and almost all continental deviations, are positive.

1.17 GLOBAL AND CONTINENTAL TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES, Temperature deviation(a)
	Global	Europe	Asia	Africa	North America	South America
Period	°C	°C	°C	°C	°C	°C
10-YEAR PERIODS
1910–19	–0.39	–0.37	–0.52	–0.36	–0.47	–0.43
1920–29	–0.28	–0.25	–0.28	–0.29	–0.23	–0.45
1930–39	–0.13	0.24	–0.26	–0.14	0.12	–0.18
1940–49	–0.06	–0.26	–0.12	0.03	0.17	–0.03
1950–59	–0.13	–0.14	–0.32	–0.13	0.03	–0.22
1960–69	–0.09	–0.12	–0.18	–0.13	–0.14	0.05
1970–79	–0.07	0.01	–0.11	–0.10	–0.19	–0.14
1980–89	0.10	0.03	0.16	0.16	0.23	0.03
1990–99	0.25	0.44	0.52	0.36	0.42	0.19
2000–09	0.43	1.02	0.93	0.75	0.58	0.36
YEARS
1990	0.27	1.02	0.64	0.42	0.26	0.07
1991	0.24	0.41	0.39	0.19	0.45	0.13
1992	0.08	0.46	0.01	0.01	0.13	–0.11
1993	0.10	–0.09	0.11	0.25	0.17	0.07
1994	0.18	0.47	0.42	0.14	0.43	0.31
1995	0.30	0.91	0.94	0.43	0.49	0.28
1996	0.18	–0.17	0.17	0.37	–0.30	0.03
1997	0.36	0.28	0.71	0.50	0.33	0.46
1998	0.51	0.24	0.90	0.78	1.36	0.62
1999	0.28	0.90	0.87	0.48	0.88	0.06
2000	0.27	1.28	0.58	0.38	0.52	–0.01
2001	0.41	0.79	0.86	0.66	0.79	0.37
2002	0.48	0.96	1.14	0.73	0.46	0.47
2003	0.48	0.80	0.85	0.80	0.59	0.44
2004	0.43	0.87	0.98	0.72	0.40	0.44
2005	0.52	0.95	0.91	0.94	0.91	0.49
2006	0.46	0.90	0.82	0.73	1.09	0.48
2007	0.46	1.42	1.39	0.85	0.61	0.17
2008	0.36	1.33	1.06	0.71	0.16	0.24
2009	0.47	0.94	0.73	0.99	0.23	0.46
2010	0.53	0.68	0.92	1.29	0.83	0.49
(a) Temperatures are shown as anomalies (or deviations) from 1961–90 base period. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.