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

Cartoon of the Week

 

First Dog On The Moon via @cecenviro

 

In 2023 Science has the tools to refine its climate change predictive scenarios, never-the-less the Earth's land masses & oceans continue to heat up because neither world leaders, governments nor industry will accept what is now the increasingly urgent evidence of their own eyes

 

“Warming oceans cause sea levels to rise, both directly via heat expansion, and indirectly through melting of ice shelves. Warming oceans also affect marine ecosystems, for example through coral bleaching, and play a role in weather events such as the formation of tropical cyclones” [The Conversation, 14 September 2021, reporting on research by Kewei Lyu, Xuebin Zhang & John A. Church]

This is a Australian Bureau Of Meteorology visualisation of sea surface temperatures around the Australian coastline on 4 August 2023 as El Niño conditions continue to be expected to arrive within weeks.

On 1 August BOM stated:

The Bureau's El Niño Alert continues, with El Niño development considered likely in the coming weeks, despite the current lack of atmospheric response. When El Niño Alert criteria have been met in the past, an El Niño event has developed around 70% of the time.

Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific are exceeding El Niño thresholds, with climate models indicating this is likely to continue at least through to the end of the year. In the atmosphere, however, wind, cloud and broad-scale pressure patterns mostly continue to reflect neutral ENSO conditions. This means the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere have yet to become fully coupled, as occurs during El Niño events. El Niño typically suppresses winter–spring rainfall in eastern Australia.

And this is what is being discussed by climate scientists in our region.

Asia Oceania Geosciences Society, 20^th Annual Conference, Axford Medal Lecture given by UNSW Emeritus Professor John Church, 2 August 2023:

What do we really know about 20th and 21st Century Sea-Level Change?

Abstract: Accelerating sea-level rise in much of the world will result in growing impacts through the 21st century and beyond. Despite the clear identification of an accelerating rise, many uncertainties remain. Understanding historical sea-level change is a prerequisite for building confidence in useful and accurate predictions of future changes.

For many decades, our limited knowledge of the contributions to sea-level change could not explain the rise measured by coastal tide gauges – the sea level enigma. New and improved in situ and satellite observations of the ocean, improved understanding of the “solid Earth”, and better understanding and improved modelling of the climate system have helped resolve this enigma. A number of recent studies have argued that the sum of contributions from both observations and model estimates to sea-level change over the satellite era, the last half century and since 1900 adequately explains the observed sea-level rise, which means the sea-level budget is closed. The major contributions are from ocean thermal expansion and contributions from glaciers, with an accelerating ice sheet contributions over the recent decades.

Our recent work has explored the sensitivity of global and regional sea-level reconstructions to poorly known land motions and the factors causing temporal and regional variations in the rate of rise. With this knowledge, existing reconstructions of global mean sea level are mostly not significantly different to each other from 1900 to the present, both in the time-averaged rate and the temporal variability. However, while the average rate over 1900 to present is similar to that from the sum of contributions, the rate of reconstructed GMSL rise is significantly smaller/larger than the sum of contributions prior to 1940/after 1970. Why is this? What do we really know? What are potential explanations for this continuing enigma?

And what can we project about future sea level, both for the 21st century and beyond. And can we constrain projections for the 21st century and beyond?

One of the notable take-aways from this lecture appears to be:

..that one of the main impacts of sea level on society will be how we adapt.

“We will have to adapt to that sea level rise we can no longer prevent. Of particular concern is very significantly increased rates of coastal flooding events and eventually inundation of some coastal areas,” Prof. Church said.

“We are already experiencing more severe and more frequent coastal flooding events impacting an increasing number of people.

“This century, we could expect up to about a metre of sea level rise with unmitigated emissions. This could rise to several metres over coming centuries. Today, an estimated 200 million people live within one metre of current high tide level, and by mid-century over a billion people are likely to live in the low elevation coastal zone, which is within 10 metres of current sea level.” [UNSW Newsroom, “'Urgent action is required’: UNSW climate expert on what’s to come as sea levels rise”, 2 August 2023]

A reminder that much of the NSW Northern Rivers coastal region is predicted to experience significant levels of inundation at an average global surface temperature rise of 1.5°C.

Climate Central, north-east NSW (Northern Rivers) mapping, 2021. Click on image to enlarge

BACKGROUND

John Church is an Emeritus Professor in the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales. He has published across a broad range of topics in oceanography.

His area of expertise is the role of the ocean in climate, particularly anthropogenic climate change, and in understanding global and regional sea-level rise. He is the author of over 180 refereed publications, over 110 other reports and co-edited three books. He was co-convening lead author for the Chapter on Sea Level in the IPCC Third and Fifth Assessment Reports. He was awarded the 2006 Roger Revelle Medal by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, a CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement in 2006, the 2007 Eureka Prize for Scientific Research, the 2008 AMOS

R.H. Clarke Lecture, the AMOS Morton Medal in 2017, a joint winner of the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Climate Change Category Prize in 2019, the AAS Jaeger Medal in 2021 and the Royal Society of NSW James Cook Medal in 2022. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.

The Promise vs The Reality of post-flood housing for homeless victims of the Northern Rivers climate change-induced 2022 unnatural disaster

 

THE PROMISE

NSW Government, website excerpt retrieved 28 December 2022:

Northern Rivers temporary housing sites

Temporary housing sites will host groups of temporary modular homes (also called pods) and caravans. The sites will include supporting infrastructure and amenities. They will vary in size, depending on the land and available amenities.

The temporary homes are stand-alone accommodation units that range from studios to 3-bedroom units. Some temporary homes will have their own internal facilities. Some sites will have communal bathrooms and kitchen facilities.

Temporary homes are rent-free for up to 2 years. Power and water costs are also included during that time. Residents are responsible for their own internet costs. For caravan residents, there may be some costs for waste management. The community housing provider will discuss any ongoing costs with residents.

How long will the temporary homes be available?

The temporary housing sites will be available for up to 3 years. The time will depend on what is needed by the community. Residents can live in the pods while they find and settle back into long-term housing. This will allow time for rebuilding homes, moving, or finding a rental property.

THE REALITY

The Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2022, p.6:

Flood victims are calling for urgent help after many spent Christmas sleeping in their cars or under their houses while emergency housing pods built specifically for them stand empty on the side of the road.

The Daily Telegraph found 10 empty purpose-built pods on the roadside just four kilometres from the centre of Lismore where Julia Melvin is still living in her car under her flood-damaged home.

Ten months after the catastrophic floods there are still officially 765 people in emergency accommodation – not counting those staying with friends or family or in their cars – and four of 11 pod housing sites still under construction.

Frustrated residents believe the $350 million spent on temporary housing, including unused pods by the now decommissioned Resilience NSW, could instead have been used to help fix the shortage of 18,600 homes across the Northern Rivers.

Ms Melvin, 62, is sleeping in her car underneath her home near the river in Lismore with her dog Bella after being rescued from the house in a tinny last February.

“I cannot live in the house so I have to sleep in the car,” the graphic designer said through tears. “Talking about it is still pretty tough.” Ms Melvin would like to move her entire house to a new location but while she battles to do so she could have been living in an emergency pod.

“I haven’t been offered anything,” she said.” It’s been inertia, totally shambolic.” The emergency housing pods, costing up to $170,000 each, were meant to be a quick fix to provide flood victims with temporary housing. But the rollout has been slow with local residents opposing their construction on ovals and public land.

A site with 52 self-contained pods that can house 200 people only opened on land at Southern Cross University in Lismore last month – nine months after the floods hit. There are other sites at Coraki, Evans Head, Kingscliff, Pottsville, Wardell and Wollongbar. Four more are under construction.

Lismore state Labor MP Janelle Saffin, who is still working out of a temporary office because hers was damaged in the floods, said rather than leaving 10 pods empty on the side of the road it would have been better to put them on private land so people could use them.

“It could have been managed better. No one knows what is being spent. It is awful and heartbreaking,” she said.

“They have said people will be in the pods for a couple of years. It might have been better to do modular homes in the beginning and let people buy them in the future.” NDIS worker Gray Wilson and partner Lisa Walmsley were due to move into their new home in Brewster St the day after the floods hit. They desperately want one of the pod homes.

“I was waiting for someone to contact me but I never heard back,” Mr Wilson said.

A NSW government spokeswoman confirmed there were 765 people in emergency accommodation in northern NSW, including in motorhomes and motels, despite $350m being spent on “medium-term accommodation”.

“The rollout of this housing program has faced challenges, particularly the persistent wet weather which has hampered construction,” she said.

The spokeswoman said 546 temporary housing units across 11 sites would eventually have the capacity to house more than 1800 people.

On 25 December 2022 SQM Research recorded a total of 110 rental listings for the Lismore City postcode of 2480, which includes East, West, North and South Lismore, Goonellabah and Girards Hill . Only three of these properties were long-term rental, the majority (92 dwellings) being rented out for periods under 30 days.

Property investors are reportedly buying up flood damaged dwellings on the market at bargain prices with the aim of renovating and placing these properties on the financially favourable rental market.

Native forest logging contracts extended across north east New South Wales by Perrottet Coalition Government

ABC News, 9 June 2022:

The NSW Agriculture Minister has signalled the government has no plans to phase out logging of native hardwood in state forests.

Key points:

• All North Coast Wood Supply Agreements have been extended until 2028

• The Agriculture Minister says selective harvesting of native forests is a renewable industry and does not plan to phase out the practice

• Critics say the contracts are 'reckless' and unsustainable post-bushfires and further threaten the habitats of endangered animals

• The state government announced a five-year extension of North Coast Wood Supply Agreements last week.

Minister Dugald Saunders said all agreements due to end next year had been renewed in order to provide "certainty" for the industry to "invest in their businesses".

The agreements cover the area spanning from the Mid North Coast to the Queensland border, and include state forests in Dorrigo, Wauchope, Kempsey, Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Taree, Wingham, Gloucester, Glenn Innes and Casino.

Mr Saunders confirmed the main terms were unchanged, meaning Forestry Corporation would continue to supply existing quantities and species to timber companies in exchange for payment…..

North East Forest Alliance, media release, 9 April 2022:

The NSW Government’s Koala Strategy released today will do little to turn around their extinction trajectory as it is not stopping logging and clearing of Koala habitat which, along with climate heating, are the main drivers of their demise.

“The Strategy proposes nothing to redress the logging of Koala habitat on public lands where at best 5-10 small potential Koala feed trees per hectare need to be protected in core Koala habitat, with the only other requirement being to wait for a Koala to leave before cutting down its tree” NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.

“We know that Koalas preferentially choose larger individuals of a limited variety of tree species for feeding, and losses of these trees will reduce populations. So protecting and restoring feed and roost trees is a prerequisite for allowing populations to grow on public lands.

“The most important and extensive Koala habitat we know of in NSW is in the proposed Great Koala National Park, encompassing 175,000 hectares of State Forests south of Grafton and west of Coffs Harbour.

“Similarly on the Richmond River lowlands the most important and extensive area known is the proposed Sandy Creek Koala Park, encompassing 7,000 ha of State Forests south of Casino.

“These are public lands that we know are important Koala habitat that need to be protected from further degradation if we want to recover Koala populations. There are many other areas of important Koala habitat on State forests in need of identification and protection from logging.

“The centrepiece of the NSW Koala Strategy is to spend $71 million on private lands, buying properties and implementing conservation agreements over up to 22,000 hectares.

“This will not compensate for the Liberal’s promises to the Nationals, as peace terms in the 2020 Koala Wars, to remove the requirement to obtain permission before clearing core Koala habitat, to end the prohibition on logging core Koala habitat, to open up all environmental zones for logging, and to stop core Koala habitat being added to environmental zones.

“Throwing money at piecemeal protection of private land, while allowing some of the best Koala habitat to be cleared and logged will not save Koalas

“Similarly their strategy to spend $31.5 million to restore and plant new Koala habitat could help, but only if they first stopped clearing and logging existing Koala habitat.

“Rather than the proposed piecemeal approach, what we need for private lands is for the Government to fund Councils to prepare Comprehensive Koala Plans of Management that identify where the core Koala habitat and important linkages are, and then to direct funding to best protecting those lands.

“The NSW Koala Strategy is set to fail because it does not fulfill the most fundamental requirement of stopping existing Koala habitat from being cleared and degraded, and lacks a strategic approach to identify the highest priority lands for protection and revegetation” Mr. Pugh said.

Koala strategy: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/threatened-species/programs-legislation-and-framework/nsw-koala-strategy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBlLkEcG0Ew

NSW FORESTRY CORPORATION is salvage logging KOALA HABITAT in CLOUDS CREEK and ELLIS STATE FOREST AGAIN IN 2022. 

These wet sclerophyll public native forest compartments are within the proposed GREAT KOALA NATIONAL PARK and were extensively burnt during the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in November 2019. 

This short video clip is a time series of satellite images taken from 16 September 2018 through to 9 June 2022, showing the impacts of logging and bushfire on the local landscape. 

The forests here on the Dorrigo Plateau adjoin the NYMBOI-BINDERAY NATIONAL PARK and surround the Clouds Creek Pine Plantations in the southern end of Clarence Valley in northern NSW. 

They are managed by the Grafton office of NSW Forestry Corporation, Hardwood Division. 

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (NSW OEH) has mapped the forests here as preferred koala habitat and the Clouds Creek state forest is recognised as a priority Koala Hub in need of protection to prevent NSW Koalas becoming extinct by 2050. 

The Chaelundi Bioregion is a higher elevation, biodiversity hotspot which lies within the north western bounds of the Great Koala National Park proposal and provides forest connectivity across the eastern ranges critical to providing climate adaptivity for a multitude of threatened species living in these old growth, subtropical and warm temperate rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest areas above 600 metres asl. 

Sign the Great Koala National Park Petition: https://www.koalapark.org.au/petition 

Save Our Oldgrowth Trees 

PLEASE WRITE TO THE NSW GOVERNMENT TO DEMAND THEY STOP CLEARING AND LOGGING ANIMAL'S HOMES AND START THE LONG PROCESS OF RESTORING THEM. 

https://www.nefa.org.au/hollow_housing_crisis

IF YOU ARE A NSW RESIDENT - SIGN THE NSW e-Petition: End Public Native Forest Logging

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/Pages/ePetition-details.aspx?q=quge-8rdRlyn4PTcuMj_PA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~