'Exceptional' heatwave challenges records
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
"The extreme January heat has prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a special climate statement, with further updates planned as the scorching temperatures continue."
(snip)
“This event is ongoing with significant records likely to be set,” the bureau statement said. “A particular feature of this heatwave event has been the exceptional spatial extent of high temperatures.”
The final four months of 2012 were the hottest on record for Australia and January is making an early run at adding to the sequence of especially hot weather.
“Australia-wide, and for individual states, we are currently well above average by many degrees,” said Aaron Coutts-Smith, the bureau's NSW manager for climate services
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/exceptional-heatwave-challenges-records-20130108-2cdn9.html
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/exceptional-heatwave-challenges-records-20130108-2cdn9.html
Just stepped out of my air-conditioned office for the first time today to get a coffee, and the heat from the pavement hit me full on. Supposed to be 43 deg. in Sydney, which is 109 deg. on the Fahrenheit scale. I don't remember temperatures quite that high, ever.
I've read that temps tomorrow in Central Australia will reach 54 deg. The world record is 57 deg. The Dept. of Metereology has had to think up a new colour for its weather charts to reflect the new high temperatures.
And if Tony Abbott takes over the country later this year, he's going to abolish all climate change measures. Dickhead!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Thu Jan 10, 2013, 12:46 PM - Edit history (3)
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I toured and lived in Australia for a bit over a year back in the early 1990s. The Great Barrier Reef ("GBR"
was "sick" even back then. I dived it in the daylight and at night. The coral reef (down at around 12 meters) that I saw was ghosty-white and dying. Very few fish inhabited the GBR that I got to see. Not much on the east coast side of Australia either. Ocean acidification and ocean temperature elevation (both due to CO2) were taking the GBR and its marine life population down. I felt I was touring an underwater graveyard. Sorry to paint such a dim picture. Australia's GBR's health is another "canary in the coal mine" for the extent of Global Warming's Earthly consequences. So Australia, I still have my photographs at least....It's all I've left of "you." After the last of the bushfires, there may not be much left of "Oz" except photographs and old video...
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An international study (10th August 2009) has found that the economic cost of coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef would be $37.7 billion. The Oxford Economics report, which values the reef at $51.4 billion, also found up to 50 per cent of tourists who would normally visit the reef would stay away from Queensland if bleaching was permanent. The study was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to set an economic benchmark for the natural asset. The foundation’s John Schubert says the figures paint a disturbing picture for tourism and local communities that directly benefit from their proximity to the reef. Managing director Judy Stewart expects the economic study will set a new standard for valuing the environment. `“I expect that the methodology will be looked at in great detail by other economists looking at other environmental assets elsewhere, as well as how we value coral reefs elsewhere,” she said. THE Great Barrier Reef’s gilt-edged importance to the Australian economy has been highlighted by new research into the potential financial cost of climate change to the world heritage-listed wonder. British consultant Oxford Economics puts the present value of the reef at $51.4 billion – approaching $2500 for every Australian alive today – but warns that nearly four-fifths of its worth would be destroyed if the coral was totally and permanently bleached. The study goes beyond placing a dollar figure on tourism, fishing and other commercial activities involving the reef, valuing “indirect” benefits such as its role in protecting coastal communities from storms and cyclones. The research was commissioned by the not-for-profit Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Its chairman, John Schubert, warned yesterday that the reef was at a “crossroads” because of climate change. “We are basically at a point where we need to take action to ensure that as much of the reef as possible can be preserved,” Dr Schubert said in releasing the Oxford Economics study. The $51.4bn figure for the reef’s net worth is calculated over a century, at a preferred discount rate of 2.65 per cent to price in the opportunity cost of tying up that capital. Oxford Economics valued the net economic benefit and profit generated by tourism on the reef at $20.2bn, with recreational fishing worth $2.8bn. Profit from commercial fishing is $1.4bn, while the so-called indirect-use value of the reef as a coastal defence absorbing up to 90per cent of the destructive force of storm-driven waves was $10bn in present value terms. Dr Schubert said the British firm’s estimate of the reef’s economic worth was broadly in line with that of Australian forecaster Access Economics, though each used a different form of economic modelling. Oxford Economics also factored in a “non-use” worth of the reef of $15.2bn, representing the potential value to Australians of, say, a future visit to the reef or of its capacity to yield breakthroughs in biomedicine and other forms of research. In costing these economic benefits, Oxford Economics said it had been able to value the potentially catastrophic effects of coral bleaching from higher ocean temperature and levels caused by climate change. The report found that the reef had been affected by heat-related coral bleaching six times over the past 25 years, most severely in 2002, when 60per cent of reefs within the vast marine park were hit, destroying up to a tenth of the coral. Total and permanent bleaching of the reef would cost $37.7bn, or 73 per cent of its assessed value to the economy, presently accounting for nearly 5 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product. Tourism would be devastated, with up to half of the million or so people who visit the reef annually likely to stay away. The Cairns region would lose 90per cent of the $17.9bn reef-related activity boosting the local economy. “This report provides a wake-up call about the threat to one of Australia’s greatest natural assets and the potential cost to Australia,” Dr Schubert said. “It also establishes for the first time the extent to which the Cairns region would be affected by a major bleaching event.”
The litmus test for climate and energy policies (November 2012):
The litmus test that Australians should apply to our climate and energy policies is simple: will we leave the Great Barrier Reef for our children? At present, the answer we are giving to this question is “no”. It may be that it is too late to save the Great Barrier Reef and the myriad of life that depends on it. It may be that the human suffering that will flow from rapid climate change cannot be avoided.
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Reference Links:
http://www.barrierreef.org/Portals/0/Oxford_report/GBRF_OxfordReport_Final_WEB.pdf
http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=2549
http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=7192
http://www.barrierreef.org/OurProjects/eReefs.aspx
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Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville say the world heritage area is under a triple attack. Their report says the crown of thorns starfish, cyclones and coral bleaching have all done severe damage in recent years. Australia’s federal Labor government has promised to do more to protect the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef after a report revealed that more than half of it had disappeared in the last 27 years. The study says the rate of coral decline is faster than expected, and if current trends continue, the Great Barrier Reef’s coral cover could halve again by 2022.
Reference Link:
http://econews.com.au/news-to-sustain-our-world/labor-pledges-more-for-dying-barrier-reef
Note: It's a pretty safe bet that the Crown of Thorns Starfish, the cyclones, and the coral bleaching problems are ALL effects of global warming-induced climate change. If the Earth's atmospheric CO2 content is not reduced to at least 350ppm ("parts per million"
by 2016, we face extinction in or around 2030.
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To think that we evolved from a sponge only to be Earth's most notorious and lethal one....
I'm going to the Great Barrier Reef in early April, so apart from being glad even the Queensland government can't destroy it that quicly, I'm very interested in those sorts of documentaries seeing I've never been up there before...
By the way, when you said this:
Note: It's a pretty safe bet that the Crown of Thorns Starfish, the cyclones, and the coral bleaching problems are ALL effects of global warming-induced climate change. If the Earth's atmospheric CO2 content is not reduced to at least 350ppm ("parts per million"
Did you mean the reefs? Or something else.....
However, though, I do have a question: Where did you hear that temps were going to reach 54*C down there?
Australia's "dome of heat" has become so intense that the temperatures are rising off the charts – literally.
The Bureau of Meteorology's interactive weather forecasting chart has added new colours – deep purple and pink – to extend its previous temperature range that had been capped at 50 degrees.
The range now extends to 54 degrees – well above the all-time record temperature of 50.7 degrees reached on January 2, 1960 at Oodnadatta Airport in South Australia – and, perhaps worringly, the forecast outlook is starting to deploy the new colours.
"The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau's model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees," David Jones, head of the bureau's climate monitoring and prediction unit, said.
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/weather/temperatures-off-the-charts-as-australia-turns-deep-purple-20130108-2ce33.html#ixzz2HNf6yKWv
It hit 40.1 here on Saturday and that's just one degree lower than the highest ever temperature in the ACT...
Stay cool, Matilda!
I was kind of surprised there was no smoke in the air this afternoon, but all we got was a dust storm once that wind really picked up. The high wind caused blackouts and when I got home I had no power, which sucked in this heat 
Yuck. 37 degrees. I think I'd just give up trying to get any sleep in that. It's 11:30 and the temperature's dropped to 28 degrees, but that's incredibly warm given we usually have cool nights after very hot days.
I read an article today at work from someone from the ANU who's an expert on climate change suggesting that instead of adding to the problem of global warming by turning on the a/c, that we just slow down so we don't overheat. That's just not going to do the trick for me in this extreme heat...
