Showing posts with label Clarence Coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clarence Coast. Show all posts

Thursday 7 March 2024

Climate Council sounding the alarm on a severe bleaching event unfolding across more than 1,100kms of the Great Barrier Reef from Lizard Island to the Keppel Islands

 

Coral Bleaching, Heron Island
Great Barrier Reef
IMAGE: Divers for Climate, February 2024
Climate Council













Climate pollution is “cooking” the Reef with law reform needed


Climate Council

MEDIA RELEASE TUESDAY 5 MARCH 2024


THE CLIMATE COUNCIL is sounding the alarm on a severe bleaching event unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef, with new vision showing the damage that stretches more than 1100 kilometres from Lizard Island to the Keppel Islands.


Marine heatwaves are bleaching swathes of the Southern Great Barrier reef white, which have brought direct observers to tears. With an ominous marine forecast for the coming weeks, authorities could declare another mass bleaching event.


The Reef, a cherished global icon and home to diverse marine life and a cornerstone of Australian natural heritage, faces repeated and escalating threats from climate pollution, caused by the burning of coal, oil, and gas, including more frequent and severe marine heatwaves.


Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said: “Relentless pollution from coal, oil and gas is Australia’s number one environmental problem and it’s literally cooking the Reef. Our environmental protection laws are outdated and in desperate need of an overhaul to prevent new reef-destroying gas and coal projects.


At least five coal and gas projects have been waved through under our outdated law by the Federal Government since it was elected, and more than 20 other highly polluting proposals are sitting on the Environment Minister's desk right now. These projects will keep being waved through without stronger laws, endangering our Reef, all marine life and the livelihoods of Queenslanders who depend on a healthy, vibrant reef.


Australians expect our national environment law will protect the precious natural environments like the Great Barrier Reef, and the numerous communities that depend upon it - not destroy them. Unless this law is fixed to make climate pollution a core consideration, the Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate before our children’s eyes.”


Climate Councillor Professor Lesley Hughes said: "As ocean temperatures continue to increase, our precious Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger. The composition and diversity of our once mighty Reef has already been changed after repeated marine heatwaves and mass bleaching events driven by the relentless burning of coal, oil and gas. Our focus must be on limiting further harm as much as possible.


Australians understand the Reef is irreplaceable. Many Queensland workers and communities rely directly on it for their livelihoods, and every one of us depends on a healthy ocean. Scientists and tour operators are being brought to tears by what they’re observing.


The Reef can be restored, but it needs at least a decade to recover from a severe bleaching event, and the only way to ensure that can happen is to rapidly reduce climate pollution from coal, oil and gas. The only way to safeguard the Great Barrier Reef as well as everyone and everything that depends on it is to cut climate pollution at the source."


Dr Dean Miller, Climate Council Fellow and reef expert said: "We're seeing the most vulnerable corals to heat stress start bleaching along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, which is alarming.


It's not just about how many corals are bleaching, but that the ones most at risk are suffering. This stress is affecting corals of all sizes, from the largest ones that have survived past bleaching events to the smallest, youngest corals.


If the heat stress continues, we'll see more widespread bleaching affecting a higher diversity of coral species, which is a major concern for the reef's health and ultimately its resilience."


For a closer look at the impacts of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, explore our collection of recently recorded footage.


The Climate Council is Australia’s leading community-funded climate change communications organisation. We provide authoritative, expert and evidence-based advice on climate change to journalists, policymakers, and the wider Australian community.


For further information, go to: climatecouncil.org.au

Or follow us on social media: facebook.com/climatecouncil and twitter.com/climatecouncil



What is happening on the Great Barrier Reef is not something concerned people on the NSW far north coast can ignore. In addition to the rich marine biodiversity along its est. 2,300km length, the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef as a feeding and breeding ground for edible fish forms part of the sustainability cycle for our regional wild caught fisheries. Keppel Island is less than 700kms from the Clarence Coast fishery, perhaps the largest estuary-ocean fishery in New South Wales. 




Tuesday 16 January 2024

SEA LEVEL RISE 2024 : It's later than you think



Most of what we the general public think we know about sea level rise calculations by inundation height and rate is derived from models which did not anticipate global land and sea surface temperatures accelerating as sharply as they have in the last two years nor thought that an average annual global temperature anomaly of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels was quite literally just around the corner.


So it is highly possible that what is quoted below by way of text and maps is an underestimation of what the Australian East Coast will begin to experience between now and 2030. While it is also likely that the most common established timelines of climate change milestones which run out to 2100 will be truncated to a marked degree.


UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), AR6 Synthesis Report (2020-23), Headline Statements, excerpt:


Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to increasing global warming, with the best estimate of reaching 1.5°C in the near term in considered scenarios and modelled pathways. Every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards (high confidence).


AdaptNSW, excerpt, retrieved 15 January 2024:


IPCC modelling suggests slightly higher sea level rise to the north of the state and slightly lower to the south. These projections do not include processes associated with the melting of ice sheets which for NSW could result in sea level rise of up to 2.3m by 2100 and 5.5m by 2150.


In the longer term, the IPCC show sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, and will remain elevated for thousands of years.


  • If warming is limited to 1.5°C, global mean sea level will rise by about 2 to 3m.

  • for 2°C, 2 to 6m is expected, and

  • for 5° 19 to 22m is expected. [my yellow highlighting]


National Oceanography Centre, Clarence Coast Mean Sea Level 1986 – 2022


YAMBA










NASA, Projected Sea Level Rise Under Different SSP Scenarios, Yamba:









Clarence Valley Sea Level Rise 2030 onwards based on Climate Central Interactive Mapping


Extent of inundation at 2 metre rise





Extent of inundation at 3 metre rise






Rise by 2030 - six years time




Rise by 2040 - sixteen years time