15 July 2015, The Telegraph, How native Australian birds like the laughing kookaburra are in ‘drastic’ decline: Study based on 427,000 surveys by birdwatchers and researchers in Australia found serious declines in native bird sightings, possibly due to feral predator, habitat loss and climate change. Some of Australia’s best-known native birds – including the magpie and the laughing kookaburra – are in serious decline and at risk of becoming endangered in some parts of the country, according to a study of national sightings. The study, based on 427,000 surveys conducted by thousands of birdwatchers and researchers across Australia over the past 15 years, found sightings of the well-known laughing kookaburra declined by about 30 per cent in the country’s east and by 50 per cent in the south-east. Magpie numbers declined less consistently, but dropped in four of seven regions including a 31 per cent reduction on the heavily-populated east coast. The study, by Birdlife Australia, a conservation organisation, found some parrots, lorikeets and cockatoos also showed strong declines. There were also reduced numbers of sightings of the willie wagtail, the tawny frogmouth and the brown goshawk. Read more here
Category Archives: Impacts Observed & Projected
14 July Washington Post, Human impact on the oceans is growing — and climate change is the biggest culprit: The world’s oceans have suffered a lot at the hands of humans — ask any marine conservationist. Unsustainable fishing, pollution and the effects of climate change are just a few of the issues that worry scientists and environmentalists. While we have a good idea of which activities are causing harm to the ocean, scientists have been less clear on which ones are the most damaging and which regions of the ocean are getting the worst of it. Now, new research has allowed scientists to map the impacts of 19 different types of human activity that have harmed the ocean over a span of five years. The study was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. The researchers used global-scale data to map the cumulative impacts of human activities between 2008 and 2013, pinpointing which areas are under increasing stress, which areas are experiencing a decrease and which human activities are having the biggest impacts in which areas. They found that nearly two-thirds of the ocean in experiencing an increase in these man-made impacts — and climate change is the worst of all, driving the majority of the changes the researchers observed. Read More here – access research maps here
13 July 2015, Climate News Network, Record torrential rainfall linked to warming climate: Scientists show that devastating increases in extreme rainfall over the last 30 years fit in with global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gases. If you think you’re getting an unusually hard soaking more often when you go out in the rain, you’re probably right. A team of scientists in Germany says record-breaking heavy rainfall has been increasing strikingly in the last 30 years as global temperatures increase. Before 1980, they say, the explanation was fluctuations in natural variability. But since then they have detected a clear upward trend in downpours that is consistent with a warming world. The scientists, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), report in the journal Climatic Change that this increase is to be expected with rising global temperatures, caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Read More here
1 July 2015, The Guardian, More evidence that global warming is intensifying extreme weather: A new study finds that global warming is causing weather whiplash. Just this week, a new article appeared in the journal Nature that provides more evidence of a connection between extreme weather and global warming. This falls on the heels of last week’s article which made a similar connection. So, what is new with the second paper? A lot. Extreme weather can be exacerbated by global warming either because the currents of atmosphere and oceans change, or it can be exacerbated through thermodynamics (the interaction of heat, energy, moisture, etc.). Last week’s study dealt with just the thermodynamics. This week’s study presents a method to deal with both. The authors, Daniel Horton, Noah Diffenbaugh and colleagues used a new technique to tease apart the complex influences of warming on changes to atmospheric circulation. Read More here