CSIRO scientist Dr John Church, regarded as Australia's leading authority on sea level and climate change, said they were clearly connected.

"It is clearly linked to increases in greenhouse gases," he said.

"Sea level has already increased the rate of rise from the 18th and 19th century. The instrumental record would indicate an acceleration during the 20th century and the projections will indicate a further acceleration during the 21st century."

Similarly, Professor Thomas Stocker, co-chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group on the physical science of climate change, said sea level rise had been considered for many decades and the observations of its rise were unequivocal.

"The further really essential focus that our assessment will have is what is sea level doing in response to the increased concentration of greenhouse gases," he said.

Both were speaking at a media briefing ahead of the IPCC meeting in Hobart this week to review the latest draft of its fifth assessment of climate change. That will be considered by the IPCC in Stockholm in September.

The Australian newspaper reported on Tuesday that the latest science on sea levels found no link to global warming or the increased rate of glacier melting.

Dr Scott Power, of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said extreme temperatures, heatwaves and bushfires were part and parcel of summer in Australia.

But climate change was increasing the likelihood and intensity of such extremities.

"So far in Australia we have seen warming of about 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1910 and.....increases are projected to be much higher than that if emissions aren't brought down over the coming decades," he said.

"So these sorts of events will become increasingly more common and the temperature records that are set will tend to go up with each passing decade."

Dr Power said that didn't mean there wouldn't be very cold periods as the climate system wasn't wholly determined by humans.

"It is clear that these sorts of things do become more common under climate change and it is clear that Australia has warned up, the world has warmed up and coastal seal levels have warmed up, global sea levels have warmed up," he said.