Australia's marine ecosystems responding to climate change

More than 80 Australian marine scientists from 34 universities and research organizations have compiled the comprehensive report from which it can be seen how Australia’s marine ecosystems are responding to climate change. Among most interesting discoveries were:

1. The increasing sea temperatures have an effect on the distribution of marine plants and animals, causing many species that are currently being found in tropical and temperate waters to move south.
2. Winds and currents over the Southern Ocean are having major impact on foraging of seabirds that breed in south-east Australia and feed close to the Antarctic each summer.
3. The good news is that some tropical fish species have a greater ability to adapt to changes brought by climate change and will likely be able to acclimatize to rising water temperatures.

The Australian science community is luckily heavily involved in research, monitoring and observing climate change impact which should lead to valuable information to management on how to help marine ecosystems adapt to climate change.

This has been a very detailed report that analyzed the changes in sea temperature, sea level, the East Australian Current, the Leeuwin Current, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and their effects on „coral reefs, tropical, temperate and pelagic fish, marine mammals, marine reptiles, seabirds, mangroves, tidal wetlands, seagrass, macroalgae, marine microbes, phytoplankton and zooplankton.

Climate change already showing its scary face in Australia?

If you take into account the recent record fires and massive floods, and also the visit of a giant Cyclone Yasi you could pretty much say that climate change is already showing its scary face in Australia. In any case these latest events have at least spurred very lively political debate down under.

There are still many people in Australia who do not see any connection between climate change and these recent disasters. Many environmentalists believe that the main reason why many of Australian politicians are reluctant to accept the connection between climate change and these extreme weather events lies in powerful fossil fuel lobbies.

But perhaps things are changing for better in Australia because Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has recently (at least) admitted that climate change was real but still hesitated to connect climate change with these recent disasters.

Admitting the climate change isn't enough and environmentalists ask from government to price carbon emissions. The issue whether to price carbon emissions or not has stirred many political debates for almost a decade, on one hand environmentalists believe that this is the only way to tackle climate change in Australia while opposition coming from fossil fuel lobbies believe that such measure would cause higher taxes and job losses.

The recent rise of extreme weather events has been very evident in Australia. This latest cyclone is really just a continuation, and many Australians still remember the year 2006 and cyclone Larry that tore through the northern Queensland town of Innisfail, accounting for an estimated A$1.5 billion in damage to the area.

There was also the combination of drought and heatwave in February 2009 which caused the nation's deadliest fires around the southern city of Melbourne, and floods in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have destroyed around 30,000 Australian homes.

When you look at all of these, Australia certainly has plenty of reasons to think about the possible connection between the climate change and recent extreme weather events.

Climate change protests in Australia

Climate change protests are becoming more frequent in Australia and many hope that this will create enough political pressure to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.

Tens of thousands of climate change protesters in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth have protested against current climate change policy.

The politicians still fail to adequately punish big polluters, and many people believe that the time has come for politicians to step up and take responsibility because climate change needs quick action.

The public is very disappointed with false promises, constant delays, and wants to see real action in form of strict laws that would curb carbon pollution in Australia.

There were also dozens of climate change skeptics who tried to disrupt rally in some cities but they failed to do so. The only thing they managed to do was to create minor incidents which police had to break up.

These events could be very helpful because many politicians will be forced to listen what their voters want from them, and perhaps politics will become more ignorant to powerful fossil fuel lobbies that delay major political decisions connected with climate change.

Climate change increasing temperatures in Australia

The scientists have measured that because of the increased climate change impact the temperatures in Australia had risen about 0.7 degrees Celsius (0.44 Fahrenheit) in the last 50 years. The temperature increase is happening in every part of Australia, and this is a clear evidence of ever-growing climate change impact.

Since the temperatures are overall increasing in Australia this has lead to more frequent wildfires and drought periods, and there are also fewer cold days than compared to the past years.

When it comes to sea level rise then latest reports suggest that sea levels were rising seven to ten millimeters (0.3 to 0.4 inches) a year around Australia's north and west.

Australia is one of the biggest emitter of harmful CO2 emissions, in fact Australia is the world's top per capita carbon polluter, mostly because of the fact that coal is the dominant energy source in Australia.

Australian government hasn't been able to make the necessary steps to tackle the increasing climate change impact because of the very powerful opposition, and it remains to be seen whether the election year will somewhat change the politic perspective of climate change problem.

Australia is one of the few developed countries in the world that failed to address the climate change issue even at basic level. Since Australia looks likely to be one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change this ignorance will have to change very fast.

Climate change making Australia hotter

Australia looks to be feeling the worst of the global warming heat as according to the latest report Australia experienced its hottest decade on record from 2000 to 2009 due to global warming. Australian Bureau of Meteorology announced that the average temperature in Australia over the past 10 years was 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average which has significantly contributed to droughts and summer bushfires.

Sadly, the forecast for 2010 is even worse as meteorologists predict 2010 temperatures to be between 0.5 and 1 degrees above average, meaning that climate change is definitely continuing to play important role in Australia.

The bureau climatologist David Jones said that he wouldn't be surprised if 2010 turned out to be the warmest year on record, especially since currently the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean are taking place.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett added how "Australia is one of the hottest and driest inhabited places on earth and our environment and economy will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change".

If you can remember the year 2009 in Australia (the second warmest on record) was mostly remembered by extreme bushfires, dust-storms, lingering rainfall deficiencies, areas of flooding and record-breaking heatwaves, and things could become even worse in 2010.

Despite the more than obvious climate change problem Australia still hasn't passed a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) aimed at reducing greenhouses gases causing global warming, mostly because opposition blocked the government's climate policy. Perhaps this report will convince politicians that tackling climate change is really a question of national interest, and future of the whole Australia could be at stake here.

What are people in Australia willing to do to fight global warming?

Last month there was very interesting poll conducted in Australia to check environmental attitudes, especially regarding climate change problem. While Australians think of the global warming as the most important problem very few of them are ready to do something about it. As in many other countries people in Australia believe that there should be some global agreement against global warming but yet fail to start their own fight on individual level.

According to this poll 6 % of Australians had bothered to reduce their car use for environmental reasons in a way both serious and sustained, with a further 15 % claiming to have cut back on their car use ''often''. About 35 % said they had not bothered at all, and 34 % said they cut back on their car use ''sometimes''. But what is even more worrying is the fact that money is much more important than environment as only 10 % people would be really willing to pay higher taxes to protect the environment.

Australia is one of the countries with constant rise in energy demand but unfortunately gets negligible amount of required energy from renewable energy sources. Most dominant fuel in Australia is coal so it is really no surprise that Australia is among top five CO2 emitters in the world. And with the current financial crisis it is very likely that Australia (like many other countries) will stick to coal despite its tremendous negative effect on environment, because this is the cheapest fuel.

Unfortunately Australians are not the only ones in the world with well known scheme "yes there is a problem but why should I solve it?", this is the opinion of many other people worldwide. People are hoping that global warming problem can be solved without their intervention, and money is definitely still more important than our environment. Money talks but it very rarely says kind words to environment.

Greenhouse gas emissions still rising in Australia

Despite plenty of talk about the necessity to cut down greenhouse gas emissions as some sort of global world action against global warming, this scenario is still many miles away from reality. In fact not only that there hasn't been any significant decrease in cutting down the global greenhouse gas emissions, quite opposite there is an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in many countries around the world. One of these countries is Australia, that is among top five greenhouse gas emitters in the world.

International research, together with the help of CSIRO carbon specialists showed that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are still rising by about two per cent a year. Climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has called for Australia to cut emissions by 10 per cent by 2020, based on 2000 levels, which is of course impossible with current emission levels, and would require reducing emissions by 1.5 per cent each year, which is in Australia's case very unlikely scenario.

Australia is one of several other developed countries that had rapid greenhouse gas emission growth starting from the year 2000. Australia and other major emitting countries like China, USA, India are mainly responsible why global greenhouse gas emissions are rising by 3.5 per cent a year, compared to levels of 1990s, when emissions rose by about one per cent a year.

Australia has the highest emission growth rate of all developed countries, and is not doing much to reverse this negative trend. This is partly due to the Kyoto process under which other developed nations were told to cut their emissions, unlike Australia that was allowed to increase emissions by eight per cent. And Australia gets more than 3/4 of its energy from coal powered plants that are among biggest industrial emitters.

Australia really needs some efficient plan because such rapid greenhouse gas emissions rate is more than alarming, especially since Australia is among top five emitters in the world, and is doing little (if anything) to reverse this negative trend. Australia should definitely invest more in renewable energy sector, and turn to cleaner energy technologies. If we want to cut down greenhouse gas emission on global level, all countries should be included, especially big, developed countries like Australia.

As you can see from this picture Australia's greenhouse gases emissions have been constantly rising, mainly because Australia's energy sector is still largely based on coal powered plants.