6 November 2015, Renew Economy, Praying for rain – Tasmania. On the back of four years of dry and the shadow of El Niño looming large, recent rains across parts of inland Queensland must come as great relief. While plenty of follow up will be needed to restore surface water stores and recharge aquifers, we should be thankful for such mercies. As I sat down on Thursday morning (November 5) to start this piece, it began raining proverbial “cats and dogs” in Melbourne, bringing relief to parts of Victoria, including my garden (the 2-3 cm of rain that fell across Melbourne was twice as much as fell in all of October). However, the news is not so positive in Tasmania, which seems to have largely missed out on rain again, after several near record dry months. And that is compromising the health of Tasmanian hydro storages. By the end of October, Tasmanian hydro capacity was already below 30% capacity, and falling calamitously, despite a dramatic reduction in Tasmanian hydro power output. Read More here
Category Archives: Ecosystem Stress
5 November 2015, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Seafood trade: A contagious tendency. Global marine resource exploitation can spread in similar patterns to disease epidemics. Current high-speed seafood trade leaves consumers blissfully ignorant of its strains on marine ecosystems and fish species. This is because global trade guarantees consistent availability of fish at affordable prices by sourcing from suppliers around the world, despite fish species being on the brink of extintion. In a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, several Centre colleagues in collaboration with WorldFish argue that global marine resource exploitation can spread in similar patterns to disease epidemics. The study highlights how the speed and connectivity of seafood commerce is severely challenging the capacity of existing regulatory institutions with the potential to decimate fisheries and the livelihoods of those that rely on them. Learn from WHO. Hampus Eriksson, lead author and scientist at World fish says: “Globalized markets connect distant sources of supply with metropolitan areas of demand. Exploitation expands so fast across the world in these modern sourcing networks that overfishing can occur before the resource is even perceived as threatened by management agencies.” The report’s authors propose that international cooperative initiatives, modelled on experiences in managing contagious diseases, could help to ensure the future sustainability of fisheries. Read More here
5 November 2015, Washington Post, A controversial NASA study says Antarctica is gaining ice. Here’s why you should be skeptical. Late last week, a study published by NASA scientists in the Journal of Glaciology made the surprising claim that the gigantic continent of Antarctica is actually gaining ice, rather than losing it, to the tune of 82 gigatons (or billion metric tons) per year from 2003 to 2008. The study has drawn massive amounts of media attention — and no wonder. It contradicts numerous prior scientific claims, including a 2012 study in Science by a small army of polar scientists, a study from earlier this year in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (which found 92 gigatons of net losses per year) and this 2014 study in Geophysical Research Letters (160 gigatons of net losses per year). It also contradicts assertions by the leading consensus body of climate science, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated in 2013 that Antarctica is “losing mass” and that this process is accelerating. That statement was itself based on multiple studies showing Antarctic ice loss. Not only does the new research fly in the face of all of this — if true, it also raises serious questions about our current understanding of sea level rise. If Antarctica is actually gaining ice, that means that a significant percentage of the current rise of the seas, estimated at roughly 3.22 millimeters per year by NASA itself, must be coming from elsewhere. (It takes 360 gigatons of ice to raise seas by 1 millimeter). No wonder, then, that a number of researchers have been quoted expressing skepticism about the new research, even as climate change doubters have had a field day — adding the study to an argumentative arsenal that previously included misleading claims about growing Antarctic sea ice. Read More here
4 November 2015, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Ecosystem management: Don’t fence me in. Managing ecosystems for predictable outcomes may backfire, new study warns When it comes to ecosystem goods and services, we humans tend to want to know what we are going to get: We want to have clean water every time we turn on the tap, beaches free of algae and bacteria, and robust harvests of crops, fish and fuel year after year. As a result, we try to manage the use of our ecosystems in ways that minimizes their variability. But a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that managing ecosystems for predictable outcomes is risky. In fact, more often than not, it backfires. Co-author and Centre science director Carl Folke explains: “Command-and-control management of ecosystems might make flows of ecosystem services predictable in the short term, but unpredictable and less resilient in the long term.” The pathology of short-term thinking. At the heart of the problem is the fact that while we can reduce variability in the short frame, variability doesn’t go away, it just goes somewhere else. Take for example our attempts at flood control on rivers. By installing levees, engineers are able to constrain flow and curb the fluctuations in water levels that once led to routine flooding of low-lying areas. These levees work so well that whole communities now exist in what were once floodplains. But, of course, the levees cannot remove all variability from the system. Sometimes a levee breaks or a river reaches levels higher than what the levee was built to withstand. The end result is a flood that is much more destructive than before. Steve Carpenter, lead author and director of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains: “For many years the river stays in the levee and everything is fine. However, every once in a while, it goes out and everything is worse.” Read More here