‘Concerning': Marine heatwaves increasing, especially near Australia

Marine heatwaves are increasing in their frequency and duration at an accelerating rate in many parts of the world, especially around Australia, a team of international scientists has found.

Warm waters may be welcomed by beachgoers but
the impacts beneath the waves are not so good.

The number of oceanic heatwave days a year has increased by 54 per cent in the past century globally, the researchers determined, using data of sea-surface temperatures from long-established sites and satellites.

“We have seen an increasing trend in the frequency and duration [of marine heatwaves], and that trend has accelerated in the past 30 years or so," said Lisa Alexander, associate professor at University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre, and an author of the paper published in Nature Communications on Wednesday.

Read Peter Hannam’s story from The Age - “‘Concerning': Marine heatwaves increasing, especially near Australia.”

Warmer Arctic winters linked to more 'Snowzillas' in US north-east

The warming Arctic Ocean is linked to a two-to four-fold increase in the frequency of severe winter storms in the eastern US, according to a new study by American scientists.

Extreme snow storms have been on the increase in
north-eastern US, particularly since 1990, new research shows.

The massive storms regularly get dubbed evocative names such as "Snowzilla" or "Snowcopalypse" when they hit populated regions such as New York, stirring debate over the role of climate change.

The new study, published Wednesday in Nature Communications, noted human-induced global warming was "widely expected to increase certain weather extremes, including more intense and frequent heat waves and droughts”.

Read Peter Hannam’s story from The Age - “Warmer Arctic winters linked to more 'Snowzillas' in US north-east.”

‘Rather startling': Study finds rapid increase in frequency of coral bleaching

The frequency of severe coral bleaching events has increased fivefold in four decades because of climate change, a pace already exceeding the time needed for some species to recover, a new global study has found.

Coral reefs are bleaching at shorter intervals around the world. 

Of 100 reefs examined worldwide, just six have escaped severe bleaching since 1980.

Read the story by Peter Hannam on today’s Melbourne Age - “‘Rather startling': Study finds rapid increase in frequency of coral bleaching.”

Is Hurricane Harvey Related to Climate Change? Scientists Have a Better Answer

As Hurricane Harvey approaches Texas, an old argument has again resurfaced about whether climate change is to blame.

Hurricane Harvey brought some heavy
weather the coast of Texas.

In the past, scientists have had a rather unsatisfying answer for both environmentalists and skeptics, essentially saying that while climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, no individual event could be attributed to it.

But that may be changing.

Climate scientists now say that they can use models and historical data to evaluate with increased precision how global warming has affected the odds of a given individual weather event.

Known collectively as the World Weather Attribution group, a group of scientists formed in 2014 to conduct studies on the subject, developing a series of steps they have worked to perfect for case studies. The team begins every project with an announcement that it will undertake the project and a promise to publish the results, even if the impact of climate change on a particular event is shown to be negligible.

Read the Time magazine story by Justin Worland - “Is Hurricane Harvey Related to Climate Change? Scientists Have a Better Answer.”

The doomsday glacier

Knut Christianson, a 33-year-old glaciologist at the University of Washington, has been there twice. A few years ago, Christianson and a team of seven scientists traveled more than 1,600 kilometres from McMurdo Station, the main research base in Antarctica, to spend six weeks on Thwaites, traversing along the flat, featureless prairie of snow and ice in six snowmobiles and two Tucker Sno-Cats. “You feel very alone out there,” Christianson says. He and his colleagues set up camp at a new spot every few days and drilled holes 90 metres or so into the ice. Then they dropped tubes of nitroglycerin dynamite into these holes and triggered a blast. Sensors tracked vibrations as they shot through the ice and ricocheted off the ground below. By measuring the shape and frequency of these vibrations, Christianson could see the lumps and ridges and even the texture of a crushed continent deeply buried beneath the ice.

Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is so
 remote that only 28 human beings have
ever set foot on it.

But Christianson and his colleagues were not just ice geeks mapping the hidden topography of the planet. They were mapping a future global disaster. As the world warms, determining exactly how quickly ice melts and seas rise may be one of the most important questions of our time. Half the world’s population lives within 80 kilometres of a coastline. Trillions of dollars of real estate is perched on beaches and clustered in low-lying cities like Miami and New York. A long, slow rise of the waters in the coming decades may be manageable. A more abrupt rise would not be. “If there is going to be a climate catastrophe,” says Ohio State glaciologist Ian Howat, “it’s probably going to start at Thwaites.”

Read the Rolling Stone story by  Jeff Goodell - “The doomsday glacier.”

Hydrological Drought Amplifies Wildfires in Borneo’s Humid Tropics

The area of wildfires in Borneo during drought years turns out to be ten times larger than during non-drought years, an international research team reports in Nature Climate Change of this week. The fires recurrently affecting Borneo’s humid tropical ecosystems have negative influence on the biodiversity and lead to large CO2 emissions, affecting atmospheric composition and regional climate processes. Future droughts in wet tropical regions will likely increase in frequency and severity, and consequently the fire risk, the team says.

The team also explored the link between hydrological drought and wildfire using the monthly fire area burnt from the spatially distributed Global Fire Emission Dataset from the period 1996-2015. They classified years in this period into drought and non-drought years. The analysis illustrates that wildfires occur annually, that is, also in non-drought years, but that amplification of wildfires occurs during drought years. In drought years, the maximum area burnt is almost a factor of ten larger than in non-drought years. Frequency of very large fire extents (>10,000 ha) is significantly higher in drought years.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “Hydrological Drought Amplifies Wildfires in Borneo’s Humid Tropics.”

A problematic century

This century is going to be decidedly problematic.

Resources upon which our modern life depends are being depleted at an alarming rate, technology is yet to demonstrate truly viable energy alternatives and to further worsen the difficulties, our weather will deteriorate even more.

An international team of researchers have found that what was once a one in 20 year occurrence of extreme El Nino events, will now be one in 10 years.

A story headed: “Major El Nino events likely to double nextcentury” in today’s Melbourne Age connected the change in frequency of El Nino events to human-induced climate change.

'No reason to debate the issue any more'

Beneath the Wisteria supporter and climate change advocate, Terry Court,  had a letter published in today’s (January 20) Shepparton News.

Terry wrote:

There is no reason to debate the issue any more. The intensity and frequency of periods of extreme heat events, as experienced last week, can be attributed to human-induced climate change.

Last week every Victorian was adversely effected by extreme heat – some lost their lives. The business-as-usual approach at all levels of government, the vast majority of Australian businesses and Australians in general will not address this wretched problem.

We have to act now to create tangible renewable and sustainable enterprises. Spending $300 million creating two new air conditioned tennis arenas at Melbourne Park, so the elite can play in 45°C won’t solve the problem.