Climate report fails to highlight extent of global warming, Flannery says

Tim Flannery says findings by the UN are conservative. (File photo) (ABC)

ABC-Online -Climate report fails to highlight extent of global warming, Flannery says

The Australian of the Year, scientist Tim Flannery, says a new report on climate change grossly underestimates the speed at which global warming is effecting the planet.

The report from the United Nations Climate Panel will officially be released in Paris tonight and is expected to find that it is very likely humans are responsible for climate change.

But Professor Tim Flannery says the report's findings are conservative and the real impact of global warming will be felt much sooner.

"The actual trajectory we've seen in the arctic over the last two years if you follow that, that implies that the arctic ice cap will be gone in the next five to 15 years," he said.

"This is an ice cap that's been around for 3 million years."

It is expected to forecast catastrophic consequences from the increase in global temperatures this century.

Professor Flannery says the consequences could last for 1,000 years.

"There's a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we're looking there at 6 degrees (Celsius) or so, that would be a disaster for all life on earth," he said.

"We will lose somewhere between two out of every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet, at that level of warming."

Break in eastern drought expected within months

End in sight: Climatologists believe the drought may soon be over. (ABC TV )

Can It Be True?

The ABC ran this story today on their on-line service. If true it will save a lot of political consternation in the comming years/months and weeks as the South-east corner of Queensland gets to critically low water levels. The only question is, will it be in the right areas to fill those desperatly dry catchments?

Climatologists are optimistic about a break in the drought across eastern Australia over the next couple of months.

A National Climate Centre report says the drought-producing El Nino event is weakening.

It says a switch to average or wetter-than-average rainfall patterns is likely in late summer or autumn.

The prediction is backed by computer modelling.

Sea temperatures have been cooling over the equatorial Pacific since early December, pointing to the end of the current El Nino weather pattern.

The climate centre says the recent southerly extension of tropical moisture to produce heavy rain through parts of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland is a further sign that patterns are turning.

States called on to act on water recycling

This is the first of a series of post I intend to do regarding the effects of global warming on our little corner of the world. I will look at the impact on the Ozone layer and the hole to our south, the potential of rising sea levels, (which will effect many other nations far more, as I sit on top of a mountain range...) politics, and temperature and rainfall patterns. This was in todays news, and I thought was a good trigger to start. I have about 6 done, but am still working on the first couple.

Watch this space...

Last Update: Tuesday, January 2, 2007. 2:29pm (AEDT)

Weather: 2006 was the 3rd driest year for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (file photo). (ABC TV )

The Federal Government has used the latest climate figures to reiterate calls for state governments to act on water recycling.

Preliminary figures from the Bureau of Meteorology's national climate report show 2006 was Australia's 9th warmest year on record.

The parliamentary secretary for the environment, Greg Hunt, says the figures also show there was above average rainfall overall, but not in the biggest cities.

"It's been the third driest year in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - the south-east catchments," he said.

"So that's quite significant. It's consistent with the bureau's long-term trend that there will be more rain in the north, but less rain in the south and south-east."

Mr Hunt says that has implications for state governments.

"There's no longer any acceptance of dumping recyclable water off our coast," he said.

"National recycling schemes, major recycling schemes in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are a priority for industry and agriculture, there's just no question about that."

The full report is due for release tomorrow.

Australian issues: A quick primer.

It is very interesting that Australia has been in the grips of a prolonged drought for 7 years now. Finally the politicians have realized we have a problem! Why? Because several major cities and towns are now on severe water restrictions. Toowoomba recently proposed the building of a world best practice re-cycling plant to return up to 25% of the waste water to one of the cities dams. The federal government in their wisdom decided it was a wonderful idea, but to look like they where concerned about community feelings they had a referendum. And got rolled!
Now we have a city with no water, in fact it is illegal to use water outside of the house now! Brisbane down the hill a bit, the capital of the state, the gold and sunshine coasts, (well over half the state population) are all on very strict limitations.
Add to that the fact that Australia, has failed to sign the much vaunted Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions, (although we produce less than 1%), and now we have a huge fight brewing over the governments floating the possibility of nuclear power. As a nation Australia has about 1/3 of all the worlds known uranium resources. The argument goes that if we sell it for producing power, (and we do), then we should value add and keep some money. If you are going to enrich it why not use it, and reduce our current reliance on coal!
There are many other projects to use solar, wind and water, but all are decades away from even marginal economic viability. The other issues include our reliance on digging finite resources out of the ground to pay for our standard of living. As Australia will receive both the first major, and worse effects of global warming, largely due to ice melt and climate change, this is an issue I watch fairly closely, and will continue to monitor. In the coming week our PM has called a water summit, which will be an interesting sight, as we have one party in nation government and another in all but one state! The possibility of constructive outcomes is therefore somewhat negated by political imperatives... Oh well. The more things change...

P.S. There are no citations or references in this post, as it is merely a state-of-play in my mind. As i delve into the issues I will supply supporting and corroborating evidence. One of my pet peeves in the WWW is the number of unsupported opinions...