‘Thundersnow', dust storms and gale force winds: What is going on with Australia's weather?

Every Australian state and territory has been impacted by wild weather over the past few days.

The hills are white today in Falls Creek despite
 the official ski season ending on October 7.

In South Australia 40,000 properties were left without power and several homes were damaged as wind gusts of over 100 kilometres per hour hit on Wednesday night.

Victoria also saw severe thunderstorms with the State Emergency Service reporting it had received over 750 calls for assistance by Tuesday night.

Read the ABC News story by Kate Doyle - “‘Thundersnow', dust storms and gale force winds: What is going on with Australia's weather?”

Deutsche Bank maps climate change risks for investments

Deutsche Bank has developed a tool to forecast where its investments across the globe may be impacted by natural disasters brought on by climate change.

"Factors such as sea level rise, droughts, flooding and
cyclones pose an immediate and measurable threat to
 investment portfolios," Deutsche Bank Asset Management said.

Although tools have existed in the insurance industry to model the impact of climate change, this is the first time this sort of data has been systematically applied to investments.

Deutsche Asset Management created the map with climate change intelligence firm Four Twenty Seven, covering more than one million individual locations in order to see how changes to climate will threaten its investment portfolios. The group currently has about €711 billion ($1.06 trillion) under management.

Economic modelling estimates that if carbon emissions aren't reduced throughout this century, per capita GDP will decrease by 23 percent from what it otherwise would be.

Read Cole Latimer’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Deutsche Bank maps climate change risks for investments.”

Tipping points - frequenlty mentioned, rarely understood

T

ipping points are frequently mentioned during climate change discussions, but no one is able to accurately say “this is what will happen”.

The Saiga - dying in droves,
 climate change tipping
point or something else?

Will it be instantaneous; bringing massive changes to the world’s weather or will be it something subtle and seemingly unimportant in the greater scheme of things, having no noticeable impact on the world’s market system?

Should the latter be the case, then except for those immediately impacted, the event will pass largely unnoticed and the world community will continue on with its business as usual ways, unaware that a tipping point has been passed.

Half the world’s Saiga population has died in less than a month and so is that evidence of a climate change tipping point or is it something else?

These bizarre looking Ice Age antelopes once roamed Central Asia in the millions are now listed as critically endangered and although there is still uncertainty why they are dying at such an alarming rate, some believe it is because of differences in the Saiga’s living conditions brought upon by climate change.

Read the Mongabay.com story - “120,000 dead: half of the world's Saiga die in less than a month”.