1 September 2017, The Conversation, Australia’s record-breaking winter warmth linked to climate change. On the first day of spring, it’s time to take stock of the winter that was. It may have felt cold, but Australia’s winter had the highest average daytime temperatures on record. It was also the driest in 15 years.Back at the start of winter the Bureau of Meteorology forecast a warm, dry season. That proved accurate, as winter has turned out both warmer and drier than average. While we haven’t seen anything close to the weather extremes experienced in other parts of the world, including devastating rainfalls in Niger, the southern US and the Indian subcontinent all in the past week, we have seen a few interesting weather extremes over the past few months across Australia. Drier weather than normal has led to warmer days and cooler nights, resulting in some extreme temperatures. These include night-time lows falling below -10℃ in the Victorian Alps and -8℃ in Canberra (the coldest nights for those locations since 1974 and 1971, respectively), alongside daytime highs of above 32℃ in Coffs Harbour and 30℃ on the Sunshine Coast. During the early part of the winter the southern part of the country remained dry as record high pressure over the continent kept cold fronts at bay. Since then we’ve seen more wet weather for our southern capitals and some impressive snow totals for the ski fields, even if the snow was late to arrive. Read More here
Category Archives: The Science
29 August 2017, The Independent, A “wave of legal action” over climate change has already begun and cases will become more likely to succeed as the scientists get better at attributing extreme weather events to global warming, activists have warned. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, lawyers from ClientEarth in London and Earth & Water Law in Washington DC said events previously regarded as “acts of God” could increasingly land humans with a bill for damages. Companies and their directors, government agencies and others with a duty of care, who fail to disclose relevant information or to plan ahead, could all potentially be in legal trouble. Several legal cases are already underway in the US with a group of young people suing the US federal government for allegedly creating and enhancing the dangers of climate change; coastal communities in California suing fossil fuel companiesover sea-level rise; and the New York attorney general’s office investigating ExxonMobil amid claims the company may have misled shareholders about the financial risk posed by climate change. The Nature Geoscience article said: “The question is not whether there will be another wave of climate-related litigation — the wave is already in motion. “The question instead is whether it will be more successful than previous efforts. Read More here
29 August 2017, VOX, Climate change did not “cause” Havey, butit’s a huge part of the story, Climate change did not “cause” Harvey, but it’s a huge part of the story. Nine things we can say about Harvey and climate. The recent Category 4 hurricanes making landfall in the US have revived the perennial discussion about the relationship between extreme storms and climate change. Despite what you might think from the dueling headlines, it’s actually a fairly complicated issue — complicated not just because of the physics, but because of the politics. Here are nine things you can say about Harvey, Irma, and climate change. 1) These hurricanes are not centrally about climate change Talking about climate change during a disaster always runs the risk of insensitivity. The story that most matters about Harvey and Irma right now are the effects they are having on lives and land in Texas and Florida, and the efforts underway to prevent more suffering. More broadly, climate is never going to be central to stories like these. There have always been hurricanes and floods in Texas and Floriday. The things making those states’ coastal developments vulnerable to severe weather — heedless development, sandy subsoil, insufficient drainage — would be problems even in the absence of climate change. Climate is not central, but by the same token it is grossly irresponsible to leave climate out of the story, for the simple reason that climate change is, as the US military puts it, a threat multiplier. The storms, the challenges of emergency response, the consequences of poor adaptation — they all predate climate change. But climate change will steadily make them worse. Read More here
29 August 2017, The Guardian, Why are the crucial questions about Hurricane Harvey not being asked? t is not only Donald Trump’s government that censors the discussion of climate change; it is the entire body of polite opinion. This is why, though the links are clear and obvious, most reports on Hurricane Harvey have made no mention of the human contribution to it. In 2016 the US elected a president who believes that human-driven global warming is a hoax. It was the hottest year on record, in which the US was hammered by a series of climate-related disasters. Yet the total combined coverage for the entire year on the evening and Sunday news programmes on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News amounted to 50 minutes. Our greatest predicament, the issue that will define our lives, has been blotted from the public’s mind. This is not an accident. But nor (with the exception of Fox News) is it likely to be a matter of policy. It reflects a deeply ingrained and scarcely conscious self-censorship. Reporters and editors ignore the subject because they have an instinct for avoiding trouble. To talk about climate breakdown (which in my view is a better term than the curiously bland labels we attach to this crisis) is to question not only Trump, not only current environmental policy, not only current economic policy – but the entire political and economic system. It is to expose a programme that relies on robbing the future to fuel the present, that demands perpetual growth on a finite planet. It is to challenge the very basis of capitalism; to inform us that our lives are dominated by a system that cannot be sustained – a system that is destined, if it is not replaced, to destroy everything. To claim there is no link between climate breakdown and the severity of Hurricane Harvey is like claiming there is no link between the warm summer we have experienced and the end of the last ice age. Read More here