Tag Archives: Coral reefs

Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Great Barrier Reef will never be the same

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Core samples of the Great Barrier Reef going back 400 years show no bleaching before 1998. There was another event in 2002. In those events less than 20% of reefs were bleached in the affected zones. This year 95 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef’s northern reefs were rated as severely bleached. Only 4 out of 520 reefs surveyed, less than one per cent, were found to be unaffected by bleaching.

The bleaching is destroying the northern sector of the Reef as we watch. Continue reading Great Barrier Reef will never be the same →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 167

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1. Hybrid wind and solar farms could deliver significant cost savings

    A total of at least 1GW of large-scale solar could be added to existing Australian wind farms, boosting renewable energy development, generation, and and smoothing its delivery to the grid, according to a new report from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency investigation the benefits of solar and wind “co-location.”

Continue reading Climate clippings 167 →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 166

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1. Temperatures could be rising faster than we thought

Using a new model, researchers from the University of Queensland and Griffith University, predict the global average temperature could rise by 1.5°C as early as 2020. The model is based on forecasts of population and economic growth combined with rising per capita energy consumption. Continue reading Climate clippings 166 →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 165

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1. Cyclone Winston the second strongest to make landfall

Cyclone Winston, which hit Fiji with winds of almost 300 kph, was the second strongest to make landfall, the strongest being Taiphoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013.

Jeff Masters lists the 13 strongest cyclones by windspeed to make landfall using 1-minute averaging: Continue reading Climate clippings 165 →

Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 161

1. Lakes warming faster than atmosphere

Courtesy of John D, from Gizmag, an item that has implications for algal blooms, health of species, food and methane emissions.

    Specifically, the results show that the average temperature in the lakes has been rising by 0.61 degrees Fahrenheit every 10 years. While that might not seem too significant, it’s a higher rate of warming than witnessed in either the atmosphere or the ocean, and the long-term effects could be pronounced… Continue reading Climate clippings 161 →
Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 145

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1. Is it climate change?

When the first named cyclone in July appeared off the Queensland coast some asked whether this was caused by climate change. My response would be that a single event is weather. Climate is about changes in the patterns of weather over time.

Carbon Brief has a post suggesting that climate change attribution studies are asking the wrong questions. Continue reading Climate clippings 145 →

Climate Change & Sustainability

What do scientists think about the Great Barrier Reef?

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That’s the question Leigh Sales should have been asking rather than playing prompt to Julie Bishop’s spin on the 7.30 Report.

I’ve been citing a 2011 study by K. Frieler et al which found that:

preserving more than 10 per cent of coral reefs worldwide would require limiting warming to below +1.5°C (atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) range: 1.3–1.8°C) relative to pre-industrial levels.

What President Obama and the Chinese are doing is not nearly enough to save the Great Barrier Reef, and there’s a fair chance that Obama knows it.

The ABC news bulletins have simply been repeating the Government lines without asking Opposition spokespeople, let alone scientists. The Guardian did better:

Bishop said on Friday the government did not believe the reef was in danger – a comment that contradicts the scientific consensus that it is.

The 2014 outlook report from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said: “Climate change remains the most serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef. It is already affecting the reef and is likely to have far-reaching consequences in the decades to come.”

Radio National’s PM program in a segment not picked up by their news outlets interviewed Dr Jon Brodie from James Cook University who was the lead author of a 2008 scientific report for the Queensland Government on water quality issues affecting the Great Barrier Reef, and last year completed a Scientific Consensus Statement based on the views of more than 50 scientists and policy experts. He cites the Australian Government’s own outlook report 2014 linked above which:

says very clearly that the reef is in poor condition and continuing to deteriorate, and that major actions are needed to stop that deterioration.

Bishop says that the people who look after the reef are following the world’s best practice. Brodie says that’s irrelevant because what they are doing is ineffective:

The reef’s lost half its coral, it’s lost most of its dugong, seagrass is in poor condition. Most of the major indicators of the reef are in a serious state and serious state of decline. And hence, whatever management we are doing now, whatever standard it is, it’s not enough.

The Queensland and Federal governments have come out with a draft Reef 2050 Sustainability Plan to address the reef’s decline but Brodie describes it as “very weak”.

The bottom line?

the Government’s own report on the reef, very clearly says that climate change is a major issue for the reef. And if we don’t do anything about it, somebody doesn’t do something about it, then there’s not really a lot of hope to have the reef restored to its, you know, good value.

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The SMH asked several scientists including Brodie, Dr Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland and Dr Charlie Veron, a former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was involved in the Frieler research cited above and stressed the dangers of ocean acidification. In 2012 he wrote an article for The Conversation pointing out the inappropriateness of the 2°C guardrail for preserving coral reefs.

Veron was blunt:

“In the long term, that is the whole of this century, we are going to have the Great Barrier Reef slaughtered,” Dr Veron, a world authority who has scientifically named about one-quarter of all known corals, said.

“There’s no doubt about that at all, if carbon-dioxide emissions keep on tracking as they are.”

Currently UNESCO is undertaking a review of the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status, due for completion by mid-2015.

Both Brodie and Veron see the Queensland and Australian governments in a frenzy to head off an ‘endangered’ listing. It was pointed out on the ABC Insiders program that such a listing would inhibit the financing of planned developments.

Obama is right to worry what his granddaughters will see if they come to visit. It’s possible there will still be something worth crossing the Pacific for. Chances are, however, that his great granddaughters will stay at home.

It’s all very simple really – Government spin versus very real concern by scientists, a threat to UNESCO World Heritage listing with flow-on effects on development, and international goals for a 2°C guardrail which will see the reef destroyed.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 113

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1. The Amazon is drying

AmazonRainforest_500_332_s_c1_c_c

Since 2000, rainfall has decreased by up to 25% across a vast swath of the southeastern Amazon, according to a new satellite analysis.

The area of concern is 12 times the size of California. The Amazon overall takes up 25% of the global carbon cycle that vegetation is responsible for, so it’s a significant carbon sink. With further drying the Amazon could become a carbon source rather than a sink.

Causes are not clear, but it’s possible that rainfall patterns have moved further north with global warming.

In related news, the re-election of Dilma Rousseff as president is seen as a significant negative for the environment in Brazil.

2. Great Barrier Reef protection plan ‘ignores the threat of climate change’

In its formal response to the Reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan, which was drawn up by the Australian and Queensland governments, the Australian Academy of Science states the strategy is “inadequate to achieve the goal of restoring or even maintaining the diminished outstanding universal value of the reef.”

There is “no adequate recognition” in the 2050 plan of the importance of curbing greenhouse gases.

Professor Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and an academy fellow, said the plan was focused on the sustainable development of four “mega ports” adjacent to the reef, rather than conservation of the reef itself.

The Great Barrier Reef has lost around half its coral cover in the past 30 years. The question now is whether UNESCO will list the GBR as endangered.

3. Limiting global warming to 2°C is unlikely to save most coral reefs

In this recent post I mentioned that “preserving more than 10 per cent of coral reefs worldwide would require limiting warming to below +1.5°C (atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) range: 1.3–1.8°C) relative to pre-industrial levels”. Following the links, the paper by K. Frieler at al is here.

It annoys me that the dangers to reefs from temperature change and ocean acidification are almost never mentioned, even by greenies. Opposition pollies should be speaking up too! That paper has been around since 2011.

4. Carbon capture and storage research budget slashed

The government has cut almost half a billion dollars from research into carbon capture and storage – which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deems crucial for continued use of coal – despite the prime minister insisting coal is the “foundation of our prosperity”.

In the budget the government cut $459.3m over three years from its carbon capture and storage flagship program, leaving $191.7m to continue existing projects for the next seven years. The program had already been cut by the previous Labor government and much of the funding remained unallocated.

John Connor, the chief executive of the Climate Institute, said CCS “has to be one of the clean energy options available because all the modelling says that to avoid temperature rises of more than two degrees, we have to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere”.

The first full-scale CCS power plant, the Boundary Dam Carbon Capture and Storage Project in Canada, opened last month.

5. Poland rejects zero coal by 2100

Poland and a bunch of eastern Europe countries “have categorically rejected the target put forward by the world’s top climate scientists to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2100 to avoid dangerous global warming…”

You might recall that when Poland hosted the UNFCCC Conference of Parties in 2013 it was positively promoting coal.

The EU has not yet apportioned the effort between countries in planning to meet recently announced emissions reduction targets. The fun is about to begin!

6. Roof top solar in San Francisco

New regulations in San Francisco will require new buildings to have roof top solar or gardens or both.

7. Tesla solar supercharging network

Tesla is rolling out a solar supercharging network for electric vehicles throughout the world eventually. Soon they will make a beginning in Australia.

The superchargers provide half a full charge in as little as 20 minutes, and are usually located near amenities like roadside restaurants, cafes, and shopping centers. Usually they have between 4 and 10 stalls.

The $5 billion “giagfactory” to be built in Nevada will generate more than 100% of its electricity needs with wind and solar.

The world is changing!

8. News of energy storage is a big, big deal

So says Sophie Vorrath at RenewEconomy:

The big announcements keep coming from the energy storage sector, with news this week that US behind-the-meter startup, Stem, has been tapped to provide 85MW of distributed energy storage to households in the West Los Angeles Basin.

The deal, a multi-year agreement awarded to Stem by Southern California Edison (SCE), marks America’s largest distributed energy storage project to date, and the first time energy storage has competed with traditional energy sources like natural gas at this scale.

For its part of the deal, Stem will deploy its advanced, behind-the-meter energy storage technology at customer locations in the Western LA Basin to act as dispatchable capacity to enhance the local reliability of the region.

In other words, using the combination of storage and its proprietary software platform, Stem will allow customers to monitor and manage energy use, which in turn will provide additional capacity to SCE.

9. Billboard banned

You may have heard that Brisbane Airport banned a billboard suggesting to incoming G20 delegates that climate change should be on their agenda. Apparently the billboard was “too political”.

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Getup and a bunch of other NGOs are campaigning to have the decision reversed.

The billboard was based on the experience of South Australian grape grower David Bruer, a farmer from South Australia who lost $25,000 worth of grapes in one day when temperatures soared to 45°C last year.

Climate Action, Climate Science

Climate clippings 110

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1. 25 climate change disasters

Business Insider, Australia tells us that 25 disasters may befall us from climate change. The assumptions are conservative – 2°C and half a metre of sea level rise by 2100, though the text sometimes specifies more. Some of the predictions are disturbing: Continue reading Climate clippings 110 →

Climate Science

Climate clippings 12

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These posts include a brief mention of a number of news items relating to climate change. They don’t preclude treating any of these topics at more length in a separate post.

They can also serve as an open thread so that we can keep each other informed on important climate news.

Temperature increases to 2100 could be double what the models predict

That is indeed so, (see Climate Progress).

Other scientists are catching up with what James Hansen told us in 2007, namely, that according to the paleoclimate data ‘long-term’ climate sensitivity is 6°C for doubled CO2, not 3°C as assumed. Continue reading Climate clippings 12 →

Climate Science

Climate clippings 11

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These posts include a brief mention of a number of news items relating to climate change. They don’t preclude treating any of these topics at more length in a separate post.

They can also serve as an open thread so that we can keep each other informed on important climate news.

The world’s reefs are in serious danger

Last December Charlie Veron said:

Reefs are the ocean’s canaries and we must hear their call. This call is not just for themselves, for the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes. If coral reefs fail, the rest will follow in rapid succession, and the Sixth Mass Extinction will be upon us — and will be of our making.

Now at Climate Progress we are told that the current season looks like the second worst on record. This is how the Australian sea surface temperature has been going;

Australian sea surface temperature

Looks inexorable.

If ocean temperatures and ocean acidity continue to rise in Australian waters at the same pace as has occurred over the past 100 years, the Great Barrier Reef will be in significant danger by 2050.

See also Skeptical Science. Continue reading Climate clippings 11 →

Climate Science, Environment

Climate clippings 6

31 Comments

These posts include a brief mention of a number of news items relating to climate change. They don’t preclude treating any of these topics at more length in a separate post.

They can also serve as an open thread so that we can keep each other informed on important climate news.

Clouds and climate sensitivity

Climate sensitivity is the temperature increase caused by a doubling of the trace gas CO2 in the atmosphere. The IPCC AR4 gave this as between 2 and 4.5 °C for short term “Charney” feedbacks, which is a large uncertainty range for such an important number. Clouds are largely to blame.

Recent research indicates less cloud cover as the sea surface warms. Thus uncertainty is taken away from the low side. Continue reading Climate clippings 6 →