research – Page 5 – ANGFA Queensland

Time running out to beat climate change

community, environment, government, research

Apr 092014

Original story by Tom Arup and Peter Hannam, Sydney Morning Herald

At least half the world’s energy supply will have to come from low-carbon sources, such as renewables and nuclear, by 2050 as part of the drastic global action needed to cut greenhouse gases to relatively safe levels, a major United Nations climate change assessment will say.

The emission reductions pledged by nations for 2020 are found to fall short of the action needed. Photo: Graham Tidy

A leaked draft of the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by Fairfax Media, also warns the world is fast running out of time to make the cuts to emissions required to keep global warming to an average of two degrees – a goal countries, including Australia, have pledged to meet through the UN.

The draft comes as Lord Nicholas Stern, the author of a 2006 landmark review of the economics of climate change, chastised Australia for being ”flaky” on global warming. In an interview with Fairfax he said each country had to be ambitious in its approach to cutting emissions and developing a low-carbon economy because climate change was a such as serious and global problem.

Australia’s target of cutting emissions by 5 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 “looks very small” and Abbott government policy changes such as the scrapping the carbon tax and its “tone of discussion” suggested it was “not very serious” about climate change.

The final version of the latest IPCC report – the third part of its fifth major assessment of climate change – will be released in Berlin on Sunday. It focuses on ways human-caused emissions can be mitigated.

The draft of the third section warns if the world puts off deep cuts to emissions until 2030 it will make the two-degree task significantly harder to achieve, and limit the options for mitigation.

The world has already warmed 0.85 degrees since 1880.

The emission reductions pledged by nations for 2020 are found to fall short of the action needed to have the best chance of keeping to two degrees, meaning deeper cuts will be required later, with higher costs and probably the need to develop technologies to draw significant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

The draft finds greenhouse gas emissions rose faster between 2000-10 than in previous decades, driven largely by economic and population growth.It says the majority of scenarios studied that ensure just a two-degree rise in warming include a trebling, to a near quadrupling, of the share of clean energy in the global supply by mid-century.

That would require the share of renewable technologies, nuclear and fossil fuels using carbon capture and storage, to rise from about 17 per cent in 2010 to at least 51 per cent by 2050.

The draft also stresses climate change is a global problem requiring international co-operation. It warns the problems will not be solved if individual countries and companies advance their own interests independently of others.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Rivers of Dreams

community, environment, government, research, waterways/wetlands

Apr 092014

Transcript from Landline 6/4/2014, reporter Pete Lewis

Rivers of Dreams

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: For some, northern Australia is farming’s final frontier. A field of irrigated dreams just waiting for the right people and the right projects to unleash its full potential.

Yet others are cautious about triggering an unsustainable land and water grab that tramples over the natural and cultural significance of some of the world’s largest unspoilt tropical savannah country.

The ABC’s rural and regional reporter Pete Lewis headed to Queensland’s Gulf, where one single project has brought both sides of this agricultural development debate into sharp focus.

(Graeme Connors “A Little Further North”)

SONG: I head a little further north each year. Leave the cities behind, out of sight, out of mind. Up where my troubles all disappear I head a little further north each year.

KEITH DE LACY, I-FED: We believe that this is groundbreaking. This is going to change the way agriculture is carried out in Australia. For the last 50 years we’ve been talking about developing the north, the food bowl of Asia. We’ve had white papers and green papers. We’ve found a way of actually doing it. And the great thing about it, it’s absolutely sustainable.

PETE LEWIS, REPORTER: The grand plan is to harness the power of this river in Queensland’s Gulf Country for irrigated agriculture on an unprecedented scale.

CSIRO’s scientists spent two years and $10 million looking into the land, the water and the climate in the Flinders and Gilbert river catchments and they’re not quite so bullish, which some say is just as well.

GAVAN MCFADZEAN, WILDERNESS SOCIETY: We don’t want to see the mistakes of the past now characterise future development in northern Australia and we urge decision makers around this project, but also the Federal Government’s northern development inquiry, to look at sustainable long-term development options for this region, not the legacy of a failed business and development model of the past.

PETE LEWIS: Over the course of the next year, authorities both state and federal will assess the arguments for and against agricultural developments in northern Australia. Whether to opt for the CSIRO’s more precautionary approach to opening up more irrigated projects or a complete game changer, that might not just change the course of mighty rivers up here, but how the water in them is allocated.

So the first line in the sand between those for and against substantially more irrigated agriculture has been drawn here, where a private consortium, Integrated Food and Energy Developments, is seeking Federal Government imprimatur and formal State Government approval for its $2 billion project – and yes, in this case, size does matter.

I-FED is factoring in 65,000 hectares of irrigated crops, mostly sugarcane, fed by two large off-river dams. That justifies investment in a sugar mill, whose by-products in turn would be used to both generate electricity and ethanol to power the mill, as well as stockfeed for beef cattle that will also be processed onsite.

KEITH DE LACY: The message we’ve got to get across and this is really the breakthrough, is that you’ve got to have the scale to make this work. The scale that can – so that we can create all of the processing architecture that enables us to grow agriculture in this isolated part of the world. If they allocate water so that we can develop projects to this scale, then you will get enormous times more economic benefit or jobs, if you like, per megalitre.

(Speaking to audience) We’ll have 12 months supply of stock, then that justifies…

PETE LEWIS: Keith De Lacy, a former Queensland Labor Treasurer, told the recent ABARES Outlook conference that this project brings him full circle, back to where he grew up, but with a keener sense now of what’s possible, honed after careers in state politics and the corporate world.

KEITH DE LACY: (Speaking to audience) I’d just really like to see, as we say, bringing government policy to life. You just have to do it differently than you did it before. Analyse everything that’s been done, find out why it didn’t work and say, ‘Well, is there a way to make it work?’ and we believe we’ve found it.

PETE LEWIS: Someone with a more cautious outlook is CSIRO scientist Dr Peter Stone.

DR PETER STONE, CSIRO: History’s shown that capitalising on the north’s advantages has its challenges and uncertainties. And this erodes confidence, which in turn can deter investment. So unlocking significant new investment in the north’s agriculture requires confidence about the scale of opportunities and the risks that attend them.

(Speaking to audience) A high-level view of what we did and the sorts of results that we found as part of the Flinders Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment. I’m a kind sort of person, so I’m not going to take you through 4,000 pages. If you’re wanting a little bit more detail, there’s the 15 or 16-pager that you’re either sitting on or have in your hands. That’s where I probably prefer to start myself. It gives a nice high-level overview but also enough information to really wrap your head around what we did.

DR PETER STONE: In the Gilbert catchment, we found over 2 million hectares of soil that is at least moderately suited to irrigated agriculture production. That’s a lot of soil. We found sufficient water resources to irrigate 20,000 to 30,000 hectares of that 2 million. To some people, 20,000 or 30,000 hectares sounds like an awful lot of land and to others it doesn’t sound like much.

So just to put it into perspective, the Ord River irrigation area currently irrigates about 14,000 to 15,000 hectares. So the 20,000 to 30,000 hectares that we’ve identified in the Gilbert could increase all of the irrigation area in northern Australia – so, north of the Tropic of Capricorn – by 15 to 20 per cent – that’s a big increase.

PETE LEWIS: Any comparisons with the Ord River scheme in Western Australia’s east Kimberley tends to stir some sceptics into campaign mode. The Wilderness Society has made a detailed submission to the northern Australian development white paper, arguing less is more.

GAVAN MCFADZEAN: There’s two projects already on the drawing board in this catchment which far exceed what CSIRO say is possible. One project, the I-FED project, wants to, at a minimum, take out three times more water and use twice as much land as what CSIRO was suggesting is possible. And that’s just one project.

There’s another project which has already started land-clearing in the Gilbert and wants to clear up to 100,000 hectares of land.

So both of these projects together result in almost 200,000 hectares of land-clearing and vast extraction of water, far beyond what CSIRO say is possible.

(Sound of heavy machinery)

PETE LEWIS: Third generation Gulf grazier Greg Ryan isn’t a fan of I-FED or its super farm either. Indeed, he’s not cleaning up land for crops. He’s weeding chinee apple out of his floodplain pastures that sprouted after the first decent rainfall here after fires and a long drought.

GREG RYAN, GREEN HILLS STATION: You’d hope we’re just at the bottom of the cycle and things will sort of pick up if the weather’s kind to us and the markets are kind to us and everything else sort of turns around, well, yes, we’ll hopefully start working our way up the cycle to the boom end.

PETE LEWIS: While he’s not opposed per se to increased irrigated agriculture here on the Gilbert River floodplain, Greg Ryan says the huge I-FED proposal simply hasn’t had the due diligence it deserves and that’s split the community.

GREG RYAN: It does concern me. I think everyone would like to see a successful project in the district for the benefit of everyone within the district. But we’ll only get one shot at this and we have to get it right, so I think the split clearly indicates that there’s not enough information and enough research being done to tell us whether it’s a viable sort of project or not.

PETE LEWIS: On neighbouring Forest Home Station, cropping helped get Ken Fry and his family through the big dry. They grew stockfeed for hungry cattle. The family moved up from Queensland’s Burdekin region, the engine room of Australia’s sugarcane industry, for a crack at irrigated cropping Gulf savannah style.

KEN FRY, FOREST HOME STATION: This was the perfect spot for us at the end. It had irrigation potential, a 400-hectare irrigation licence, farmland, irrigators… Essentially we’re cattle people, but I figured we had to be able to diversify and for the last couple of years, it’s been keeping us going, being able to grow crops on our country with irrigation.

PETE LEWIS: Today he’s checking his emerging guar crop; a legume that’s sometimes referred to as poor man’s soybean. Guar gum is a thickening agent used in everything from fast food and toothpaste to coal seam gas fracking.

Forest Home Station’s rich alluvial soil profile is around 4m deep. They grow everything from cavalcade hay to peanuts and corn and are hopeful they’ll get not only approval to clear more scrub, but a crack at more water on the open market against I-FED and others.

Do you think there’s enough for all of you?

KEN FRY: Ah… Yes, I wouldn’t like to say. I don’t really actually know what water, what percentage of water will be released. I don’t have those figures. We need a considerable amount. The Gilbert River precinct needs a considerable amount. I-FED’s proposal, they’re asking for a considerable amount. A lot.

If we’re all equal, if we’ve got to go and put our tenders in for the water or go to auction and bid on it, it will all be fair, but if anything else besides that happens, they get granted water, they will be the biggest water holders and they will hold and they will organise the markets around that.

Saying that, I hope there is enough water here that we can survive and they can survive and it will be so much better for the area if we can both go in tandem.

PETE LEWIS: Huenfels Station was a soldier settler block that’s been in John Bethel’s family since the 1920s, mainly running cattle. But thanks to an agreement he signed with I-FED, it may eventually boast an expansive water feature, a header dam for the irrigated farm.

JOHN BETHEL, HUENFELS STATION: What is attractive about it is they’ll lease it back to us for a peppercorn rental for three years and then you’ve got the option to lease it back after all the development’s done, whatever’s left, so probably a godsend really for a lot of people that are under pretty stiff financial circumstances.

PETE LEWIS: And for John Bethel, that’s the rub. There just simply aren’t a host of development alternatives in this part of the country that could underpin economic growth quite like the super farm.

JOHN BETHEL: One of the things that holds the shire back is it has a very small rate base and projects like these are the only opportunity they’ve got to grow their rate base, but from my perspective I’m more concerned about the next generation that want to stay on the land and be involved in the area and I think that without these sort of projects, the future looks pretty grim really.

PETE LEWIS: Perhaps not surprising the local council is pretty excited about the potential windfall too. The population projections alone would result in a tenfold increase in Georgetown’s 250 residents.

WILL ATTWOOD, ETHERIDGE SHIRE MAYOR: I see that it’s going to be good for a town, to grow the economics of our town, the economics of our area. It’s going to make a lot of opportunity for people to have businesses around. But we’re doing it really tough just at the moment. I mean this is an absolutely huge boost, but really any boost to us at the moment would be great.

(John Denver “A Little Further North”)

SONG: Up where there’s silence and the night sky is clear I head a little further north each year.

PETE LEWIS: So where is that boost likely to come from?

KEITH DE LACY: Well let me say, we would go to the Australian capital markets first. We would prefer to get the money from Australia. Nevertheless, getting money from offshore is good for Australia anyway.

We expect there will probably be a mix of it, but we’ve had enormous interest from the United States, from North America, enormous interest, probably the most interest from there, I’ve got to say that. But, no – we’re ecumenical about that. We want to develop this project and we’ll raise the funds where we’ve got to raise the funds.

PETE LEWIS: First they’ll need to raise $15 million to get the project to the next stage, and undertake the environmental impact and detailed engineering assessments, before pitching for a half a million megalitres in water entitlements and tree-clearing permits. To say nothing about winning over all the locals.

JOHN BETHEL: I don’t think there’s ever been a community born where there wasn’t polarised views. This community – if I’m any judge of the community sentiment – I’d say there’s a small number that are strongly opposed. There’s a small number like myself that are very pro. And everyone else is sitting a leg on either side of the fence. And if you’re a business owner, you’re hoping like hell it’s going to go ahead but probably thinking that it’s too good to be true. And that’s where I think most of the community sit. I’m pretty sure of it actually.

Vinegar makes box jellyfish stings worse

community, research

Apr 082014

Original story by Brendan Trembath, ABC News

Box jellyfish stings, which can be deadly, could be made worse by applying vinegar, Australian researchers have found.

PHOTO: James Cook University researcher Jamie Seymour swims with a large box jellyfish in 2004. Photo: AAP/Paul Sutherland

Pouring vinegar on the welts caused by the sting of the jellyfish has been the recommended first aid treatment for decades.

But researchers from James Cook University and Cairns hospital in far north Queensland have found that vinegar promotes the discharge of box jellyfish venom.

Box jellyfish are the most venomous creatures on the planet, and Associate Professor Jamie Seymour from the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University says she is in awe of them.

“No venomous animal on the planet kills quicker than this thing, so they are reasonably impressive, from that point of view,” he said.

People badly stung by box jellyfish have died within minutes.

The Australian Resuscitation Council (ARC) is a voluntary coordinating body that represents all major groups involved in the teaching and practice of resuscitation as part of first aid treatment.

The ARC recommends treating stings with vinegar to inhibit the injection of venom.

Meanwhile, the Queensland Poisons Information Centre advises on its website says to not use vinegar to treat stings from Bluebottles (Physalia sp), however does currently say to use vinegar on box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) and Irukandji stings (Carukia barnesi jellyfish).

However, Associate Professor Seymour says the research has now called that advice into question.

“You can increase the venom load in your victim by 50 per cent,” he said.

“That’s a big amount, and that’s enough to make the difference, we think, between someone surviving and somebody dying.”

He says first responders would be better off relying on the fundamentals of first aid.

“If the person’s not breathing on the beach, breathe for them,” he said.

“Otherwise leave them alone and they’ll probably come out of it.”

He says organisations that deal will this sort of emergency medicine, such as the ARC, now need to look at the research findings.

“That’s the interesting one – we now have evidence that shows that vinegar increases the venom load in the victim,” he said.

“There is no evidence that shows the application of vinegar decreases the amount of venom in the victim.

“What now is up to the ARC, is for them to review the data that we’ve published, which has already obviously been peer reviewed, and for them to make a decision as to what should go on.

“We would expect that the protocols would change.”

[Stinging balls] that have already fired off – and it might only be 20 or 30 per cent – you apply vinegar to them and it increases the venom coming out of those by 60 per cent, and that’s the kicker.

Associate Professor Jamie Seymour

However, he says it is not known how long that might take.

The first documented case of using vinegar to treat box jellyfish stings was in the Philippines just over a century ago.

“Vinegar was first used, from what I can gather, in 1908 in Manilla where a then-medical officer in the army saw a couple of kids jump off a wharf, they got stung, and he put vinegar on them,” Associate Professor Seymour said.

“We have absolutely no idea why, but he did.”

He says in the 1980s researchers investigated what vinegar did and found evidence of its effectiveness.

“What those studies with vinegar showed was that if you apply vinegar to those tentacles when they’re on the body, that those stinging balls that haven’t gone off become completely and totally inactive, which is really good,” he said.

“The problem was nobody looked at what the vinegar did to the ones that have already fired off.

“That’s what our research has shown: that of the ones that have already fired off – and it might only be 20 or 30 per cent – you apply vinegar to them and it increases the venom coming out of those by 60 per cent, and that’s the kicker.”

The research has been published in the journal of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine.

$180,000 wetland developed to clean North Lismore creek

community, education, environment, research, waterways/wetlands

Apr 082014

Original story by Marnie Johnston, Northern Rivers Echo

ENVIRONMENTAL science students at Southern Cross University got the chance to visit the Slaters Creek constructed wetland in North Lismore on Monday and learn about the positives of modern stormwater treatment techniques.

FIELD TRIP: Touring Lismore City Council’s constructed wetland at Slaters Creek are Southern Cross University natural resource management students Sam Walker and Trent McIntyre, with (back from left) council environmental strategies officer Anton Nguyen, SCU lecturer Dr Antony McCardell and the Water and Carbon Group’s Katrina Curran.

Third-year SCU students from the unit Ecotechnology for Water Management got to explore the wetlands with their tutor Antony McCardell, who said one of the great benefits of the environmental science courses at SCU was the wide range of natural and manmade environments available for students to visit on a field trip.

“With increasing human impacts on waterways there is a growing need for urban planning to approach stormwater and wastewater management in ways that benefit both humans and the environment,” Dr McCardell said.

Lismore City Council had commissioned the $180,000 wetland to improve the creek’s water quality – identified as containing high levels of pollution – before it enters the Wilsons River.

Now the wetland is showing good signs of working efficiently following a period of settling, is also attracting bird life and has improved the amenity of public open space in the area, the council has said.

A technical analysis of the wetland was provided for the students by Katrina Curran from the Water and Carbon Group, which designed the wetland and monitors it.

“Wetland habitats have been severely impacted as a result of urban development through changes to both water quality and quantity entering waterways,” Ms Curran said.

“New urban areas are now required to treat stormwater but this project is important as it seeks to improve water quality and biodiversity in an area that has already been developed.”

As well as treating stormwater effectively by mimicking nature’s own systems of filtration, the wetland complements restoration work undertaken by the Banyam/Baigham Landcare Group over the past few years.

Time running out to meet global warming target: U.N. report

community, environment, government, research

Apr 072014

Original story by Alister Doyle, Reuters

World powers are running out of time to slash their use of high-polluting fossil fuels and stay below agreed limits on global warming, a draft U.N. study to be approved this week shows.

Smoke rises from chimneys of a thermal power plant near Shanghai March 26, 2014. Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Government officials and top climate scientists will meet in Berlin from April 7-12 to review the 29-page draft that also estimates the needed shift to low-carbon energies would cost between two and six percent of world output by 2050.

It says nations will have to impose drastic curbs on their still rising greenhouse gas emissions to keep a promise made by almost 200 countries in 2010 to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 C (1.4F) since 1900 and are set to breach the 2 C ceiling on current trends in coming decades, U.N. reports show.

“The window is shutting very rapidly on the 2 degrees target,” said Johan Rockstrom, head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and an expert on risks to the planet from heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas.

“The debate is drifting to ‘maybe we can adapt to 2 degrees, maybe 3 or even 4’,” Rockstrom, who was not among authors of the draft, told Reuters.

Such rises would sharply raise risks to food and water supplies and could trigger irreversible damage, such as a meltdown of Greenland’s ice, according to U.N. reports.

The draft, seen by Reuters, outlines ways to cut emissions and boost low-carbon energy, which includes renewables such as wind, hydro- and solar power, nuclear power and “clean” fossil fuels, whose carbon emissions are captured and buried.

It said such low-carbon sources accounted for 17 percent of the world’s total energy supplies in 2010 and their share would have to triple – to 51 percent – or quadruple by 2050, according to most scenarios reviewed.

That would displace high polluting fossil fuels as the world’s main energy source by mid-century.

CARBON CAPTURE

Saskatchewan Power in Canada will open a $1.35 billion coal-fired electricity generating plant this year that will extract a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from its exhaust gases – the first carbon capture and storage plant of its type.

Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group meeting in Berlin, will help governments, which aim to agree a deal to slow climate change at a Paris summit in December 2015. Few nations have outlined plans consistent with staying below 2 degrees C.

Another report by the IPCC last week in Japan showed warming already affects every continent and would damage food and water supplies and slow economic growth. It may already be having irreversible impacts on the Arctic and coral reefs.

The new draft shows that getting on track to meet the 2C goal would mean limiting greenhouse gas emissions to between 30 and 50 billion tonnes in 2030, a radical shift after a surge to 49 billion tonnes in 2010 from 38 billion in 1990.

The shift would reduce economic output by between 2-6 percent by 2050, because of the costs of building a cleaner energy system based on low-carbon energies that are more expensive than abundant coal, the IPCC said. Capturing carbon dioxide is also expensive, it added.

China and the United States are the top emitters.

One option is to let temperatures overshoot the 2C target while developing technology to cool the planet by extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, the draft says. The draft that would add to risks of warming and push up costs.

Extracting carbon from nature includes simple measures such as planting more trees, which soak up carbon as they grow, or capturing and burying greenhouse gases from electricity-generating plants that burn wood or other plant matter.

A problem is that markets for trading carbon dioxide focus on cuts in emissions at power plants and factories burning fossil fuels, not renewable energies which are viewed as green.

“In Europe there is no incentive” said Jonas Helseth, director of environmental group Bellona Europe who chairs a group of scientists and industry experts looking at burying emissions from renewable energy.

The IPCC draft report is the third and final study in a U.N. series about climate change, updating findings from 2007, after the Japan report about the impacts and one in September in Sweden about climate science.

The September report raised the probability that human actions, led by the use of fossil fuels, are the main cause of climate change since 1950 to at least 95 percent from 90. But opinion polls show voters are unpersuaded, with many believing that natural variations are the main cause.

Back from the brink – Issue 6, March 2014

community, environment, government, research, threatened species, wildlife

Apr 022014

Back from the brink is a periodical publication produced by EHP’s (the Department of Environment and Heitage Protection) Threatened Species Unit.

The publication provides information about what is happening in threatened species recovery around Queensland.

In this issue

Concern for Raine Island turtles
Counting koalas and creating habitat in South East Queensland
Family fun day at Daisy Hill
Woongarra Coast turtle conservation work
Keeping track of flatback turtles
Spring has sprung: launch of a new species database
Summer loving: monitoring little tern breeding success
Science or Art? A jump in the mistfrog population
Find your calling: the search for the rufous scrub-bird
Forestry and threatened species: guiding practices for species conservation

Australia losing its footing in icy continent, say scientists

government, research, waterways/wetlands

Apr 022014

Original story by Larissa Nicholson, The Canberra Times

Australia is losing its influence over the future of Antarctica because when it comes to the icy continent, ”science is currency,” the Australian Academy of Science says.

The Knox Coast in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Photo: Torsten Blackwood

In its submission to the federal government’s 20-year plan for the region the academy says that, while Australia lays claim to 42 per cent of Antarctica, the number of science projects being supported under its Antarctic program is less than half that of 1997.

Will Howard, deputy chairman of the National Committee for Antarctic Research, said Australia’s only ice-breaking ship, Aurora Australis, was more than 20 years old and would not be up to the job for much longer.

Meanwhile countries such as China, Russia and India were investing more in Antarctic research, including in mineral exploration, according to the submission.

Dr Howard said Antarctica offered a unique opportunity to see some of the first impacts of climate change and ocean acidification as they played out. ”That provides us with really important insights into how marine ecosystems closer to Australia might respond to climate change,” he said.

”Things like sea-level rise are driven in part by processes occurring in Antarctica because part of the driver is the fate of the large ice sheets in Antarctica, the degree to which they are melting.”

Dr Howard said there were also important strategic reasons to keep a strong Australian scientific presence in Antarctica, because many of the problems of Antarctic management are environmental.

Both Antarctica and surrounding ocean systems faced the impact of human activity and if Australia wanted a say in how to deal with the damage, it had to be backed by science.

”For us to have influence over those management issues we need to be seen to be, and have credibility on, the science. That’s an important link from science into more regional influence,” he said.

Dr Howard said those on both sides of the political spectrum recognised the importance of the research so he hoped the academy’s plea for more research funding, better and more reliable access to Antarctica and improved capabilities for data collection would be heeded.

Australian National University visiting fellow Harvey Marchant, who retired as head of Australian Antarctic Division’s biology program, said funding for research had been reasonable, but he was concerned about possible cuts in the expected tough federal budget. Dr Marchant said it was important for Australia to begin the process of buying a new ice-breaker to replace Aurora Australis, because it was likely to take years and cost many millions of dollars.

”I would be just so deeply saddened, and I think it would be to Australia’s international detriment and our standing internationally, if we were to let our Antarctic science program wither,” he said.

In 1997 the Australian Antarctic Program supported 142 science programs, a number that has dropped to 62, according to the academy.

Climate change exacerbates the exotic invasion of waterways

community, environment, pest species, research, waterways/wetlands

Mar 272014

News release from Queen’s University, Belfast

One of the most serious threats to global biodiversity and the leisure and tourism industries is set to increase with climate change according to new research by Queen’s University Belfast.

Researchers at Queen’s have found that certain invasive weeds, which have previously been killed off by low winter temperatures, are set to thrive as global temperatures increase.

The team based at Quercus, Northern Ireland’s centre for biodiversity and conservation science research, predicts that invasive waterweeds will become more widespread over the next 70 years.

Floating pennywort – Comber. Photo: John Early

The researchers say that additional management and legislation will be required if we are to stop the spread of these pest species.

Four species in particular could establish in areas on average 38 per cent larger than previously thought due to projected climatic warming. The water fern, parrot’s feather, leafy elodea and the water primrose, are already highly problematic throughout warmer parts of Europe. Invasive species are considered to be one of the most serious threats to global biodiversity, along with climate change, habitat loss and nutrient addition.

The estimated annual cost of invasive species (plants and animals) to the UK economy is £1.8 billion, with £57 million of impact on waterways including boating, angling and waterway management.

Funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), the research has been published in the journal Diversity and Distributions. It looked at the global distributions of 15 invasive plant species over a 69 year period.

Dr Ruth Kelly, from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s, who led the study, said: “Traditionally upland areas have been protected by low winter temperatures which kill off these invading weeds. Now these are likely to become increasingly vulnerable to colonisation.

“On the island of Ireland currently about six per cent of the island is unsuitable for these invasive species but we think this will drop to less than one per cent by 2080. This type of research from Queen’s is an example of how we are creating a more sustainable future and shows how monitoring the impact climate change is having is important for many reasons. This project will allow the NIEA and other agencies to begin their planning on how to address future issues and ensure our waterways remain a valuable economic and recreational resource.”

Dr Kelly added: “It’s not all bad news, however, as our most common invasive waterweed, the Canadian pondweed, is likely to become less vigorous perhaps allowing space for restoration of waterways and native plant communities.”

Dr Michael Meharg, from the NIEA, said: “Invasive waterweeds can be a major problem in lakes and rivers throughout Britain and Ireland. Such plants are fast growing and often form dense mats of vegetation which may block waterways and cause problems for boating and fishing, and, therefore, to the leisure and tourism industries. Dr Kelly’s research is crucial in planning for the future as we know invasive waterweeds will also out-compete native aquatic plants species and alter habitats for insects and fish.”

The full research paper is available here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12194/abstract

IPCC preview: deep trouble brewing in our oceans

community, environment, fisheries, government, research, waterways/wetlands

Mar 262014

By Ove Hoegh-Guldberg at The Conversation

Scientists are meeting this week in Yokohama, Japan, to finalise and approve the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group II – the part of the IPCC process that seeks consensus on the likely impacts of climate change, as well as how it might change the vulnerability of people and ecosystems, and how the world might seek to adapt to the changes.

Rousing the Kraken: climate change could make life in the ocean much harder. Image: Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy/Wikimedia Commons

The oceans are a new focus of this latest round of IPCC assessment, and while one cannot preempt the report to be delivered next week, there are likely to be some important ramifications for our ability to deal with the growing impacts from non-climate-related stresses such as overfishing, pollution, and habitat destruction, as well as ocean warming and acidification.

To put it simply, a failure to deal with our changing climate will make it far more difficult to deal with the many other threats already faced by our oceans.

If you’ll pardon the pun, the ocean is in deep trouble, and that trouble will only get deeper if we don’t deal decisively with the problem of climate change.

Ecosystems already under stress

I am deeply concerned about the state of the world’s oceans, as I believe we all should be. The argument is pretty simple. Human activities are increasingly affecting the oceans, which are the cornerstone of life on our planet. These impacts are causing the decline of many ecosystems and fisheries. As a result, the risks to people and communities are rapidly expanding.

Throw in ocean warming and acidification, and you have many scientists predicting the dangerous and unprecedented decline of ocean processes and ecosystems.

Not only is this decline tangible and measurable, but models (from simple to advanced) show future projections of sea temperature rising above the known tolerance of many organisms and ecosystems.

The pace of this change now has many world leaders concerned about the future of the world’s oceans and their dependent people and businesses. This is led to an increasing number of past and future conferences focusing on how we can tackle the scale and rate at which marine ecosystems and resources are deteriorating and changing.

This concern has led to commitments such as the Global Partnership for Oceans. In a dramatic 2012 speech, outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick positioned the partnership to galvanise resources and take real action on reversing the decline of the world’s oceans. Soon afterwards, the partnership – which involves more than 150 governments, companies, universities and non-government organisations – declared a set of objectives to meet by 2022, including to:

Halve the current rate of natural habitat loss, while increasing conservation areas to include 10% of coastal and marine areas;
Reduce pollution and litter to levels that do not harm ecosystems;
Increase global food fish production from both sustainable aquaculture and sustainable wild-caught fisheries.

This sounds like a tall order. However, under a stable climate, I have few doubts that we could come close to achieving these broad objectives. It might take some time, but I think we would get close.

Unfortunately though, we are not in a stable climate.

Climate poses an extra layer of threat

Over the past 50 years, increasing amounts of energy and carbon dioxide have been flooding into the ocean through the burning of fossil fuels and changes to land use. Initially, the ocean was fairly inert to these changes because of its large volume and thermal mass.

However, just like the eponymous monster in John Wyndham’s apocalyptic novel The Kraken Wakes, the ocean is now stirring and big changes are beginning to happen. Ocean temperatures and acidity are increasing in lockstep with average global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide content. Many of these changes are unprecedented in 65 million years.

While some changes, such as the extent of mixing of heat into the deep ocean, have been relatively unexpected, the energy content of the ocean has been increasing steadily. In reality, the widely proclaimed “hiatus” in surface warming simply represents heat being driven into the oceans.

Heat content of the ocean, atmosphere and land since 1960. Figure 1 Church et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. (2011)

The problem with climate change in the context of dealing with the growing threats from overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction is that the goalposts are constantly shifting. If we continue to push sea temperature upward by 0.1-0.2C per decade, we begin to shift species, and hence fisheries – some are already moving at up to 200 km per decade. Trying to manage a fishery or protect an ecosystem, when the best conditions for the organisms involved are moving polewards at such a rate, may well become impossible in many circumstances.

Future goals

This means that if the Global Partnership for Oceans is to meet its ambitious goals, we must deal decisively with the problem of emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and land-use change.

If we don’t, then with all due respect to the partnership’s efforts, we are set to waste billions of dollars trying to address problems that will only get swamped by a fast-changing climate.

As outlined in last September’s IPCC Working Group I Report, stabilising the climate will require world carbon dioxide emissions to be brought onto a trajectory far below what governments and companies are set to emit over the next 20 years if business is allowed to continue as usual.

A lack of such decisive action will indeed wake the Kraken – committing us to ocean, and indeed planetary, impacts that are likely to last for many thousands of years.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg receives funding from the Australian Research Council and carries out research on coral reefs and the impacts of climate change. He is affiliated with the University of Queensland, AIMS, Stanford University and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. He is a Coordinating Lead Author for the AR5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
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Scientists predict Australia will continue to get hotter

community, environment, In-Stream, research, threatened species, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Mar 242014

Original story by Jeanavive McGregor and Jake Sturmer, ABC News

The latest United Nations report card on the impacts of climate change predicts Australia will continue to get hotter.

Sunset over Adelaide. Scientists believe the world is still on track to become more than two degrees Celsius warmer. Photo: Ching-Ling Lim

The ABC has obtained drafts of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Scientists believe the world is still on track to become more than two degrees Celsius warmer – and that potentially means whole ecosystems could be wiped out.

Chapter 25 of the IPCC’s report has identified eight potential risks for Australia:

The possibility of widespread and permanent damage to coral reef systems – particularly the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo in Western Australia.
Some native species could be wiped out.
The chance of more frequent flooding causing damage to key infrastructure.
In some areas, unprecedented rising sea levels could inundate low-lying areas.
While in others, bushfires could result in significant economic losses.
More frequent heatwaves and temperatures may lead to increased morbidity – especially among the elderly.
And those same rising temperatures could put constraints on water resources.
Farmers also could face significant drops in agriculture – especially in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Worst-case scenario could see 40 per cent drop in production

The report said the worst-case scenario for the Murray-Darling Basin, south-east and south-west Australia would mean a significant drop in agricultural production.

The rigorous report process

The upcoming report includes 310 lead authors from 73 different nationalities.

Australian scientists are heavily involved as authors and reviewers of the Working Group reports.

Lesley Hughes, the lead author of the paper on Australasia, says Australia “punches above its weight”.

“We are disproportionately a larger group than you might otherwise think based on our population in the IPCC authorship team,” she said.

“We have a lot of scientists working on climate change issues and that is because we see Australia as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”

The reports take up to five years to produce, undergoing a rigorous review process.

For example, 48,000 review comments were received on the upcoming report.

Professor Hughes says the process is not really a matter of achieving consensus, but rather is about evaluating the evidence.

The Australasia chapter alone has 1,000 references.

“They are certainly the largest reports ever produced on climate change and its associated risks but I think probably some of the most careful documents put together anywhere,” she said.

“I rather naively thought that eight people and 25 pages to write, how long can it possibly take to write three-and-a-bit pages?

“The answer to that is about three years. There is much discussion about the weight of evidence so it’s a very long, detailed and careful process.”

CSIRO chief research scientist Mark Howden said the latest science predicts production could drop by up to 40 per cent under a severe drying scenario.

“At current rates of emissions, we are likely to go past two degrees,” Dr Howden said.

“There are various analyses that indicate it’s highly unlikely that we’ll stay below two degrees in the absence of major activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The longer we delay activities to reduce those … emissions, the more likely it is we’re going to go above two degrees.

“Higher degrees of temperature change also carry with them higher degrees of rainfall change, both in terms of their average rainfall and likely increases in rainfall intensity.

“Both of those have implications for agriculture and both of those aren’t necessarily good.”

Despite forecasts of less rain and hotter temperatures, irrigators maintain they have a central role to play in the nation’s future.

“That is why you have irrigation. It evens out those severe weather events such as a drier climate,” National Irrigators Council chief executive officer Tom Chesson said.

“People forget that Australia is so far ahead when it comes to water management. We are the cutting edge of water management in the world.

“It would be a [mistake] to think that we have been sitting on our hands and doing nothing. Necessity is the mother of all invention.”

Concerns about future of coral reefs

The final draft of the Australasia chapter raises serious concerns about the future of the the nation’s coral, finding there is likely to be “significant change in community composition and structure of coral reef systems in Australia”.

University of Queensland marine scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg says there are already concerns about the rate of change.

“We’re seeing changes which haven’t been seen since the dinosaurs,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.

“If we continue on this pathway, corals continue to plummet and places like the Great Barrier Reef may no longer be great.

“If we keep on doing on what we’re doing – and that’s ramping up local and global stressors – coral reefs will disappear by the middle of this century or be in very low amounts on reefs around the world.”

Ocean temperatures continue to rise

Three years ago during a plenary session in Venice, the member nations of the IPCC resolved for the first time to include a separate chapter on oceans for the Working Group II report.

Oceans cover 71 per cent of the planet’s surface and changes to the ocean’s environment are playing a central role in the management of climate change.

Scientists agree that the ocean’s surface temperatures have continued to increase throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.

IPCC drafts indicate the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans have warmed by as much as half a degree, which has profoundly altered marine ecosystems.

Rising water temperatures and some levels of ocean acidification mean species are on the move.

Changed migratory patterns of fish and other catch pose significant risks to commercial fishers and other coastal activities.

Sea urchins once found only as far south as New South Wales have made their way to Tasmania.

The CSIRO’s Elvira Poloczanska said the urchins could destroy kelp forests, which had flow-on effects for rock lobsters.

“Kelp forests, much like forests on land, provide a habitat for a huge number of species,” Dr Poloczanska said.

“So a number of fish, vertebrates – including commercial species such as the rock lobster.

“As the forests disappear, so these species will disappear from the particular area as well.”

But interestingly, scientists do see some benefits and opportunities for some commercial fishing and other aquaculture industries in line with these changing patterns.

Despite progress being made on mitigation and adaptation measures, land management practices including pollution, nutrient run-off and overuse of marine resources also pose risks to marine life.

The report calls for internationally recognised guidelines to assist adaptation strategies already in place.

The report is due to be released on March 31.

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