Rising Seas and Broken Seasons Threaten Australia's Indigenous Heritage - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Rising seas and shifting seasons

are eroding Australia's First Nations heritage

Key Points

Sea level rise is destroying coastal middens and burial grounds across northern Australia.[1] Warming temperatures are shifting plant flowering, throwing traditional fishing calendars out of step.[2] Degrading reefs and estuaries are eroding habitat for culturally significant totem species.[3] Indigenous cultural knowledge still lacks dedicated legal protection under Australian law.[4]

In February 2021, a king tide tore open a beach on Muralug Island in the Torres Strait. The retreating waters exposed a woman's grave, left undisturbed for countless generations. Kaurareg elders and archaeologists raced the incoming tide to recover her remains with dignity and care.^[5]

The excavation exposed a widening crisis now facing Indigenous heritage across the entire continent. Coastal burial grounds and shell middens documenting tens of thousands of years of occupation face similar risk. Traditional seasonal calendars, built on subtle environmental cues, are drifting out of alignment with a warming climate.^[2]

Coastal Erosion and Sacred Site Destruction

Shell middens still line thousands of kilometres of Australian coastline, holding shells, tools and ancestral remains. Frequent boat wakes and powerful king tides now erode these deposits faster than researchers can record them. Rising seas are projected to significantly worsen this damage over the coming decades.^[1]

In the Northern Territory, the Marthakal Indigenous Protected Area sits barely one metre above sea level. Traditional Owners there describe watching ancestral country slowly slip beneath the rising tides. For custodians, the physical destruction of burial sites causes profound spiritual and emotional distress.^[5]

Some Traditional Owner groups are now systematically mapping Sea Country values before erosion claims them. These Traditional Owner led projects combine cultural knowledge with geospatial survey to prioritise protection work. The approach firmly keeps decision making with the communities who hold cultural authority.^[3]

Advocates argue governments must directly fund relocation and protection programs led by Traditional Owners. Existing heritage laws rarely match the scale or urgency of this coastal climate loss. Communities are calling for dedicated statutory funding tied directly to sea level projections.^[6]

Disruption of Ancestral Seasonal Calendars

Seasonal calendars link plant flowering, star positions and animal behaviour to precise ecological windows. Traditional Owners have long relied on these cues to judge when to fish, hunt or gather. Rapid warming is now steadily breaking the link between signal and season.^[2]

On Yuku Baja Muliku Country near Cooktown, wattle flowering once signalled the start of fishing season. Warmer temperatures now consistently delay that flowering, leaving traditional timing out of step. Elders are adapting their calendars to track new and less predictable patterns instead.^[2]

Migratory animal movements also anchor cultural stories and traditional hunting law across northern Australia. When migrations arrive early or late, associated ceremonies and harvest timing fall out of sync. This growing mismatch weakens the practical value of stories carried through many generations.^[7]

Aboriginal language groups are working with CSIRO to record updated ecological knowledge in living calendars. These co-designed calendars carefully document seasonal change while preserving traditional structure and meaning. The partnerships help knowledge holders formally demonstrate their ongoing connection to Country.^[8]

Cultural and Knowledge Transmission Risks

Middens and burial grounds function as physical archives of deep cultural memory and lore. When coastal erosion destroys a site, oral history loses its tangible anchor point entirely. Younger generations now risk inheriting stories without the places that once grounded them.^[1]

Songlines and language often encode the plant and animal cues now shifting out of place. If these local indicators vanish, associated words and narratives can lose practical meaning too. This steadily weakens intergenerational transmission of ecological knowledge, language and identity.^[7]

Cultural centres and schools are now incorporating updated seasonal calendars into local curricula. Presenting both original and revised versions helps students understand environmental change over time. This dual approach preserves historical accuracy alongside careful present day observation.^[8]

Young Indigenous rangers are increasingly recording elder knowledge using digital mapping and audiovisual tools. Archiving this knowledge carefully captures observations before ecosystems shift beyond recognition. Digital records also support native title claims and heritage protection efforts.^[3]

Ecological Impacts on Cultural Totems and Biodiversity

Totem species often depend on tightly timed relationships between flowering plants and pollinating insects. Warmer seasons are shifting flowering earlier while insect emergence steadily lags behind. This growing desynchronisation can reduce breeding success for culturally significant species.^[2]

Northern Australia and the Torres Strait are experiencing some of the fastest climate driven change nationally. Warmer waters and shifting rainfall are altering migration timing for birds and marine species. Traditional Owners in these regions report the most pronounced calendar disruption yet observed.^[7]

Sea level rise and warming oceans are degrading reef and estuarine ecosystems relied upon for generations. Species such as dugong and turtle hold deep totemic and dietary significance for coastal communities. Their declining habitat now threatens both food security and cultural practice directly.^[3]

Indigenous rangers are increasingly co-managing land and sea Country alongside government scientists nationwide. Joint programs combine traditional ecological knowledge with satellite monitoring and species surveys. This growing collaboration is helping identify climate threatened cultural landscapes much earlier.^[9]

Policy, Rights, and Climate Justice

Australian climate adaptation policy rarely names Indigenous heritage as a distinct protection priority. Sea level projections inform coastal planning, yet cultural site protection often remains an afterthought. Traditional Owners argue heritage risk assessment must become central to all adaptation policy.^[6]

Indigenous cultural and intellectual property currently lacks standalone legal protection in Australia. Traditional knowledge holders cannot always control how adapted ecological knowledge is used or shared. Government consultations on dedicated new legislation for this issue remain unresolved.^[4]

International instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirm cultural heritage rights. Article 31 formally recognises Indigenous authority over traditional knowledge and cultural expression. Advocates argue these international standards should guide firm binding domestic protections.^[10]

Indigenous leaders are calling for dedicated federal and state funding streams for heritage resilience. Directing resources straight to Traditional Owner organisations, rather than intermediary agencies, is a key demand. Direct funding would let communities set and control their own protection priorities.^[7]

Australia's Indigenous heritage sites face compounding threats from rising seas and shifting seasons. Coastal middens and burial grounds are eroding faster than they can be documented or protected. Seasonal calendars, refined over millennia, are drifting out of step with a warming climate.

These changes extend far beyond ecology. They threaten the transmission of language, songlines and ecological knowledge between generations. Totem species and cultural landscapes face parallel pressure as ecosystems fall out of sync.

Governments have been slow to embed Indigenous heritage protection within climate adaptation policy. Traditional Owners continue leading mapping, monitoring and knowledge preservation efforts largely without dedicated funding. Genuine accountability requires resourcing First Nations led solutions at the scale of the crisis.

References

1. Coastal Erosion. Aboriginal Heritage Office survey work documenting the erosion of shell middens from boat wakes and rising seas around Sydney Harbour.

2. Shifting Seasons: Using Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science to Help Address Climate Change Impacts. The Conversation article describing how warming is delaying wattle flowering and disrupting fishing calendars on Yuku Baja Muliku Country.

3. Sacred Sites, Sites of Particular Significance and Places Important for Cultural Tradition. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Outlook Report section on Sea Country values mapping and threats to sacred sites.

4. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP). Arts Law Centre of Australia explainer on the absence of standalone legal recognition for Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.

5. From Crumbling Rock Art to Exposed Ancestral Remains, Climate Change Is Ravaging Our Precious Indigenous Heritage . Australian Geographic report on the Muralug Island burial excavation and the vulnerability of the Marthakal Indigenous Protected Area.

6. Indigenous Governance, Rights and Access. Australia State of the Environment 2021 chapter outlining gaps in legal frameworks governing Indigenous rights and heritage protection.

7. Climate Change. Australia State of the Environment 2021 chapter on climate change impacts on Indigenous seasonal knowledge and calls from the National First Peoples Gathering on Climate Change.

8. Indigenous Seasonal Calendars. CSIRO overview of co-developed seasonal calendars documenting Indigenous ecological knowledge across language groups.

9. Climate Change Will Strike Australia's Precious World Heritage Sites, and Indigenous Knowledge Is a Key Defence. CSIRO article on the co-designed climate change toolkit developed with Traditional Owners for World Heritage site managers.

10. Native Title Report 2008, Chapter 7: The Protection of Indigenous Knowledge. Australian Human Rights Commission report examining legal gaps and international standards for protecting Indigenous traditional knowledge.

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Australia's Vanishing Wildlife: How Climate Change Is Driving an Extinction Crisis - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australia's threatened species list has surged past 2,175 entries
as climate change intensifies extinction pressure nationwide

Key Points

Australia's threatened species list has grown to 2,175, a 54 per cent rise since 2000, with climate change now driving nine in ten new listings.[1] Black Summer bushfires burned more than thirty million hectares and touched part of the range of 832 vertebrate species nationwide.[2] Victoria's Mountain Ash forest is now ranked Critically Endangered, with hollow-dependent species such as Leadbeater's possum in steep decline.[5] Federal environment law reform remains stalled despite a landmark review finding two decades of continuous environmental decline.[8]

At dawn in Victoria's Central Highlands, a field ecologist checks hollow-bearing trees for signs of the elusive Leadbeater's possum. 

Many trunks that once sheltered generations of arboreal marsupials now stand permanently empty. Climate-driven fire and prolonged heat have reshaped this ancient forest faster than researchers ever anticipated.

Australia now lists 2,175 threatened species under federal law, a 54 per cent increase since 2000. Climate change now drives nine in ten new species listings across the continent, national biodiversity data show.^[1]

Climate Change as a Driver of Threatened Species Listings

Rising temperatures and atmospheric drying are accelerating extinction risk right across the continent. Warmer, drier conditions place chronic stress on plants and animals already living near their physiological limits. The 2025 Australia's Environment Report found climate change now affects nine in every ten newly listed species.^[1]

Extreme events are compounding this pressure in communities across the nation. Black Summer bushfires burned more than thirty million hectares of forest and woodland in 2019 and 2020. The fires affected part of the geographic range of 832 vertebrate species.^[2]

Climate driven habitat contraction is displacing species across almost every Australian ecosystem. Rainforest, alpine and coastal habitats all face parallel pressures from rising heat and prolonged drought. Sea surface temperatures around Australia reached their highest ever recorded level in 2025.^[3]

Direct mortality events are increasing sharply among populations already under stress. Reef monitoring in 2025 recorded the largest annual decline in coral cover in almost forty years of surveys.^[4]

Ecosystem-Level Changes and Cascading Effects

Large scale tree mortality is reshaping entire forest ecosystems across south eastern Australia. Victoria's Mountain Ash forest has lost almost all of its original old growth to decades of logging and fire. Species reliant on centuries old tree hollows now face mounting extinction risk.^[5]

Food web disruption tends to follow closely behind large scale habitat loss. Populations of Leadbeater's possum and the greater glider have dropped between fifty and sixty five per cent in twenty years. Cavity dependent birds, including the crimson rosella, show similarly steep declines.^[6]

Altered rainfall patterns are reshaping freshwater and terrestrial systems in different directions at once. Prolonged dry winters have reduced environmental scores across Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. Exceptional flooding elsewhere shows how unevenly a changing climate now plays out.^[1]

More frequent and more intense fires are transforming long-term ecological conditions across fire prone regions. Fire touched the range of nearly half of all species newly listed as threatened in 2025.^[1]

Species-Specific Vulnerabilities and Case Studies

The Mountain Ash ecosystem is now formally ranked Critically Endangered under international conservation criteria. Just over one per cent of the Central Highlands forest remains as untouched old growth today. This scarcity threatens every species that depends on centuries old nesting hollows.^[5]

Rainforest and montane species show some of the strongest climate linked mortality signals recorded nationally. Threatened frog populations have declined by an average of sixty seven per cent since 2000. Reptiles have fared even worse, declining by eighty eight per cent over the same period.^[1]

Warming oceans and acidification are driving a sharp surge in threatened marine species nationwide. Six mass coral bleaching events have now struck the Great Barrier Reef since full monitoring began in 1998. Western Australian reefs recorded their worst recorded heat stress in 2025.^[7]

Species living at the very edge of their climatic tolerance zones appear to be collapsing fastest. Two dolphin species were added to the national threatened list in 2025 alone. Rising marine heatwave frequency was cited as a key contributing threat.^[1]

Policy, Monitoring and Scientific Evidence

Federal data show the rate of new threatened species listings accelerating over the past decade. Thirty nine species were added to the list in 2025, down from a record 130 in 2023. The average annual rate remains well above historical, pre 2019 norms.^[1]

Limited long-term monitoring plots continue to obscure early warning signs across remote regions. Ecological monitoring capacity had already diminished before the catastrophic 2019 fire season began. Time lags between disturbance and measurable decline delay scientific recognition further still.^[2]

Attributing individual population declines directly to climate change remains a genuine scientific challenge. Impacts of the Black Summer fires continue to emerge years later, owing to lagged population effects. Further delays arise from the time needed to update formal conservation listing advice.^[1]

Species decline increasingly intersects with broader national climate and carbon policy planning. An independent review found federal environment law has allowed continuous environmental decline for two decades. Reform bills introduced to Parliament in 2025 remain before a Senate committee.^[8]

Adaptation, Conservation and Future Pathways

Climate refugia are proving critical for protecting vulnerable populations already under sustained stress. The dramatic filling of Kati Thanda Lake Eyre in 2025 triggered a major breeding and growth event. Endangered species such as the dusky hopping mouse are expected to benefit.^[3]

Assisted migration is gaining serious consideration for species facing rapid climate driven habitat loss. Scientists must weigh translocation benefits against the risk of disrupting unfamiliar recipient ecosystems. Decisions increasingly hinge on the accelerating pace of climate change itself.

Urban planning offers a further, often overlooked avenue for reducing extinction risk nationwide. Climate resilient vegetation choices can support species that persist along expanding city fringes. Local governments are gradually beginning to factor extinction risk into planning approvals.

Long-term adaptation planning depends heavily on stronger institutional accountability across every level of government. A new National Environmental Protection Agency began operating on 1 July 2026 with formal enforcement powers. Its performance will help determine whether Australia's extinction trajectory can genuinely be reversed.^[8]

Australia's extinction crisis is accelerating under the mounting weight of climate change. Rising heat, fire and marine warming are pushing native species past their capacity to adapt. The evidence points to an ecological system under sustained and worsening stress.

Ecosystems from Mountain Ash forests to coral reefs reveal a strikingly similar pattern. Habitat loss compounds mortality, while persistent monitoring gaps delay recognition of decline. Without stronger long-term data, early warnings will keep arriving too late.

Accountability now rests squarely with government and environmental regulators alike. Reformed environmental law and a new national regulator offer a genuine opportunity for change. Whether Australia reverses its extinction trends will depend on how firmly that opportunity is grasped.

References

1. Biodiversity - Australia's Environment 2025. TERN and the Australian National University report tracking the 2,175 threatened species listed under federal law.

2. Ecological consequences of Australia's "Black Summer" bushfires: Managing for recovery. Peer-reviewed study in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management detailing fire extent and monitoring gaps.

3. Australia's environment is improving but climate change is accelerating damage to ecosystems and wildlife. ANU Reporter coverage of the 2025 Australia's Environment Report, including record sea surface temperatures.

4. Great Barrier Reef more volatile with sharp declines in coral cover. Australian Institute of Marine Science findings on the largest annual coral cover decline in almost forty years.

5. It's not just Victoria's iconic mountain ash trees at risk, it's every species in their community. The Conversation analysis of Mountain Ash forest collapse and its fauna, drawing on university ecological research.

6. Imminent forest collapse threatens Melbourne's water supply. ANU research on population declines among hollow-dependent species in Victoria's Mountain Ash forest.

7. Coral bleaching events. Australian Institute of Marine Science record of mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and in Western Australia.

8. EPBC Act reforms make it to parliament, EDO's first impressions. Environmental Defenders Office analysis of the Samuel Review findings and the 2025 environmental law reform bills.

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Australian Arts Confronts the Climate Crisis - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australian artists are racing to green a sector menaced by the climate crisis they depict

Key Points

A national consortium called Creative Climate now unites organisations including Green Music Australia and CLIMARTE.[1] Green Music Australia has piloted a certification scheme to help venues measure and cut their emissions.[4] Academic reviews warn Australia's flagship cultural policy mentions climate change only once.[6] Researchers counted around twenty Australian music festivals disrupted by extreme weather across 2022 and 2023 alone.[9]

Wings of hand-stitched feathers rise above Melbourne's financial district each summer, carried by seven performers calling themselves Climate Guardians. 

Their theatrical protest outside major banks and fossil fuel financiers exemplifies a broader shift now reshaping Australian arts and culture. 

Musicians, painters, playwrights and choreographers across the country are confronting an emergency their own venues, tours and festivals increasingly suffer.

This investigation examines the strengths, weaknesses and roadblocks facing Australian arts organisations in their fight against climate change. 

It traces grassroots alliances, industry decarbonisation tools, structural policy gaps, financial constraints and the volatile weather now threatening festivals. Together these forces reveal a sector rich in creative ambition yet still searching for durable institutional support.

Grassroots Initiatives and Alliances

A national consortium named Creative Climate launched in June 2025 to unite the sector's climate response. Green Music Australia leads the alliance, funded across four years by Creative Australia. Member groups include A Climate for Art, Centre for Reworlding and pvi collective.^[1]

CLIMARTE anchors Australian arts and climate advocacy through festivals, forums and exhibitions. The organisation unites artists, scientists, academics and patrons around evidence-based climate science. It was established in 2010 to bridge the arts, humanities and scientific communities.^[2]

First Nations artists bring a distinct caring for Country perspective to environmental advocacy projects. Creative Climate's Planting in Naarm gathering paired Elders with community members for native revegetation work. The event, held at Melbourne's Federation Square, embedded cultural workshops alongside practical land care.^[1]

Performance collective ClimActs answers a different question through spectacle rather than policy submissions. Its Climate Guardians characters, winged figures inspired by guardian angels, formed in 2013 through Quit Coal activism. Public appearances outside fossil fuel financiers generate striking imagery that consistently attracts news coverage.^[3]

Industry Decarbonisation and Footprint Tools

Green Music Australia has piloted a Green Venue Certification scheme for live music venues. Backed by the New South Wales Government, the program assesses venues against sustainability criteria. A companion Green Venue Guide offers strategies covering energy, waste and procurement practices.^[4]

Touring productions now access dedicated carbon calculators to plan lower-impact schedules. Arts on Tour developed the Green Touring Toolkit alongside Arup's Circulate emissions calculator. The toolkit guides production design, venue partnerships and post-tour emissions measurement.^[5]

Critics argue voluntary measurement tools reach mainly organisations already committed to climate action. Smaller venues and independent artists often lack the resources to adopt formal certification. Uneven uptake leaves large sections of the sector outside any consistent emissions accounting.

Certification criteria target specific operational areas rather than sweeping structural change. Assessors examine energy use, waste management, water consumption and food and drink sourcing. Procurement practices round out the criteria reviewed under the certification framework.^[4]

Structural Barriers and Policy Gaps

Academic reviews describe Australia's artistic climate efforts as piecemeal and fragmented. Analysts point to scattered initiatives lacking coordinated national direction or dedicated funding. Without unifying policy, individual programs struggle to achieve lasting sector-wide impact.^[6]

Artwashing describes the practice of cultural institutions accepting funding from polluting industries. The term surfaced when advocates called on Adelaide's Museum of Economic Botany to sever ties with gas company Santos. Such arrangements let sponsors present a progressive image while continuing environmentally damaging operations.^[7]

The Australian Government's landmark cultural framework is named Revive, covering the years since 2023. A close reading found the word climate appears only once across the entire document. That single mention sits buried within a case study rather than core policy commitments.^[6]

Revive falls short of addressing systemic ecological transformation across the cultural sector. Its focus remains on workplace standards, First Nations representation and career sustainability. Climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for arts organisations remain largely absent from the framework.^[8]

Financial and Operational Constraints

Many arts bodies view sustainability planning as a burdensome expense rather than a strategic priority. Tight operating margins leave little room for dedicated environmental staff or specialist expertise. Advocates argue urgent investment in personnel and knowledge is essential for long-term sector survival.^[7]

Historical funding instability has limited non-profit arts groups' capacity to lead climate action. Short-term grants discourage multi-year sustainability planning across the community and independent arts sector. Organisations instead prioritise immediate programming needs over longer-term environmental infrastructure investment.^[6]

Prestige festivals often face a stark compromise between corporate funding and climate advocacy. Fossil fuel and mining sponsors remain significant contributors to major Australian cultural budgets. Accepting such funding risks accusations of artwashing even as programming budgets stay protected.^[7]

Smaller, independent arts organisations suffer most from the lack of baseline federal infrastructure. Without dedicated climate programs, regional and grassroots groups rely on ad hoc philanthropic support. This patchwork leaves emerging artists and community organisations most exposed to funding shocks.^[8]

Climate Risks and Festival Volatility

Extreme weather events increasingly force the cancellation of outdoor Australian arts events. Researchers counted around twenty Australian music festivals disrupted by extreme weather across 2022 and 2023 alone. Flooding, bushfire smoke and storms drove most of these cancellations and postponements.^[9]

Splendour in the Grass earned the nickname Splendour in the Mud after 2022 flooding cancelled its opening day. Reacting to such disruptions consumes organisers' energy that might otherwise build climate awareness campaigns. Operational survival increasingly overshadows the sector's broader advocacy ambitions during crisis periods.^[8]

Non-profit and community-run festivals face mounting financial pressure that pushes some toward closure. Falls Festival paused entirely in 2023 amid what organisers called a turbulent period. Rising costs for transport, accommodation and insurance compound the sector's existing fragility.^[10]

Insurance premiums are climbing sharply for arts organisations that host outdoor community events. Insurers now price policies against billions in extreme weather claims recorded across recent years. Reduced coverage and higher costs squeeze festival budgets already strained by low margins.^[10]

Australia's arts sector shows genuine creative energy in confronting the climate crisis. Grassroots alliances, certification schemes and Indigenous-led projects demonstrate what committed communities can achieve with limited resources. Artists, musicians and performers keep translating scientific warnings into public understanding and action.

Structural gaps persist despite this energy. National cultural policy remains largely silent on climate change, and funding instability discourages long-term sustainability planning. Festivals meanwhile face escalating financial and physical risk from extreme weather.

Closing these gaps requires coordinated government action beyond sector goodwill alone. Sustained investment and transparent policy commitment remain essential next steps. Genuine accountability from institutions and funders will determine whether Australian arts can adapt enough to match the crisis they portray.

References

1. New national arts-led climate action alliance announced . Details the launch of the Creative Climate consortium and its Planting in Naarm event.

2. Home - CLIMARTE . Outlines CLIMARTE's founding mission uniting the arts, humanities and sciences around climate action.

3. Our History - ClimActs . Recounts the 2013 founding of the Climate Guardians performance collective.

4. Green Music Australia launch program to boost sustainability of live music venues . Describes the Green Venue Certification pilot and its assessment criteria.

5. Green Touring Toolkit - Arts on Tour . Explains the toolkit and Circulate emissions calculator for touring productions.

6. Culture and climate: A dangerous gap in policy and practice . Analyses the near-total absence of climate change from the Revive cultural policy.

7. National Cultural Policy revives unfamiliar hope . Discusses artwashing, the Museum of Economic Botany dispute and calls for sustainability investment.

8. Climate change is transforming Australia's cultural life . Examines festival cancellations and Revive's silence on systemic climate adaptation.

9. Australian music festivals are increasingly affected by climate change . Reports research counting festival cancellations linked to extreme weather in 2022 and 2023.

10. The climate crisis is crushing Australian festivals . Details the insurance crisis and financial pressures behind festival closures such as Falls Festival.

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Another warning shot from Antarctica: the “Doomsday Glacier” is losing its last shield – Gregory Andrews

Lyrebird Dreaming  –  Gregory Andrews

Author Gregory Andrews is: Founder and Managing Director of Lyrebird Dreaming A former Australian Ambassador and High Commissioner in West Africa Australia’s first Threatened Species Commissioner A leader in Indigenous policy

Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is almost the size of Victoria, and more than two kilometres thick in places. It holds enough land-based ice to raise global sea levels by around 65 centimetres when fully melted. 

 

Now scientists believe its remaining eastern ice shelf - the floating extension that protects the glacier’s front - could break apart as early as this year.

“The last bit of ice shelf in front of the glacier is poised to disintegrate,” British Antarctic Survey scientist Robert Larter ⁠told Live Science.

This doesn’t mean the entire glacier will collapse this year, but it’s still a very serious warning. The glacier’s ice shelf is already floating, so its breakup will add little water directly to the ocean. The danger is what comes afterwards. Because an ice shelf acts like a brace for the glacier, restraining the immense mass of land-based ice behind it. As it weakens and disappears, the glacier behind it can flow more rapidly into the sea.

Satellite observations show large cracks have been spreading across the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf since 2016. Full-depth rifts have appeared. And the shelf is increasingly losing contact with the seabed ridge that has been holding it in place - a ⁠peer-reviewed study from Cambridge University described this as the shelf’s “last act”.

The deeper danger

Thwaites is especially vulnerable because much of it sits on bedrock below sea level.

Warm, salty ocean water is reaching underneath the glacier and melting it from below. Tides are already pumping seawater as far as 10 kilometres beneath the grounded ice. And worse, much of the bedrock slopes downwards further inland. As the glacier retreats, thicker ice will be pushed to deeper water, encouraging still more melting and retreat. Scientists call this ‘marine ice-sheet instability’.

While the ⁠International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration concluded that complete disintegration of the glacier is unlikely during the next few decades, its retreat will definitely continue and accelerate. A 2026 modelling study found that Thwaites’ rate of ice loss has increased more than fivefold since the 1990s. By the 2060s, it could be losing around 180 to 200 billion tonnes of ice each year.

The eventual loss of Thwaites will also contribute to the destabilisation of surrounding West Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise seas by approximately 3.3 metres. These changes will unfold over more than our lifetimes. But ice sheets have long memories. Tipping points crossed now will commit Earth to rising seas for centuries to come.

What does this mean for Australia?

Global sea levels have already risen by more than 22 centimetres since 1900. And the rate of rise has accelerated from about 1.5 centimetres per decade during the twentieth century to nearly four centimetres per decade since 1993, according to the ⁠BOM and CSIRO.

Higher seas give every king tide, storm surge, east coast low and tropical cyclone a higher launching pad. Coastal erosion accelerates. Salt enters wetlands and groundwater. Homes, roads, ports and sewage systems become more vulnerable. Properties don’t have to be permanently underwater to become uninsurable, unmortgageable or effectively unsellable.

Australia’s ⁠National Climate Risk Assessment assesses that sea-level rises will place an additional 1.5 million Australians in high-risk coastal areas by 2050.

The consequences for low-lying Pacific nations and Torres Strait Islanders are more existential. Rising seas already threaten freshwater, food production, homes, cultural sites and the habitability of entire islands. First Nations coastal Country and irreplaceable cultural heritage will also be inundated and eroded.

Photo of the Thwaites Glacier from Live Science.

The bad news is that breakup of the Thwaites ice shelf is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean the fate of the entire glacier is fixed. Every fraction of a degree of avoided warming matters. Every centimetre of avoided sea-level rise matters. Every additional decade available for communities to prepare matters.

Thwaites is showing us what a climate tipping process looks like: it’s not like a spectacular Hollywood disaster, it’s the progressive loss of structures that hold a vast natural system together. And Australia can’t credibly acknowledge the danger while continuing to approve new coal and gas projects that will operate for decades. 

Gregory Andrews Climate Change Articles

• The Graph That Should Be Front-Page News
• Beginning of the End for Fossil-Fuelled Cars
• Ignoring the Warning Light
• Australia’s Flagship Climate Policy Is Failing to Cut Emissions
• Winter's Here, The Snowfields Are Open, But There's No Snow
• Worried About Climate Collapse? Here's Ten Things You Can Actually Do
• Fossil Fuel Fascism: When a Dying Industry Tries to Take Democracy With It
• Climate Policy Counts Dollars and Tonnes. What if We Counted the Dead?
• The Climate Crisis is a Health Crisis
• The Science Is In: Global Warming Is Accelerating
• While We Watch Iran, the Planet Keeps Burning
• Have your say on Canberra's next Climate Strategy: It will be make or break
• Science Warns of Future Where Billions Bake
• Two Years to 1.7°C: the “Prediction Game” We Can't Afford to Lose
• Emergency Photo Ops Aren't Climate Leadership
• Why Fascists Reject Climate Science
• Don't Be Distracted: Earth's Life Support Systems Are Collapsing
• Diesel rebates for miners and a new EV tax? Australia's climate policy double-think
• What Gas is That? Get to Know Your Climate Pollutants

Australia's Sharks are Shifting South on Warming Seas, and so Is the Risk - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Warming seas are pushing predatory sharks into new Australian waters

Key Points

The East Australian Current's acceleration is pushing tropical sharks hundreds of kilometres south.[1] Bull sharks now hold favourable habitat off New South Wales for months longer than in the past.[5] Rising metabolic demands are driving sharks to forage more aggressively near shore.[6] New South Wales has expanded drone and SMART drumline technology to adapt to shifting shark presence.[9]

Ballina surfer Grace Owens felt the shift long before scientists confirmed it publicly. 

Warmer water lingered off the Northern Rivers coastline into late April, weeks past its usual seasonal retreat. 

Bull sharks stayed in the lineup long after the summer holiday crowds had already left, unsettling longtime locals.

Her account matches a wider pattern now documented by marine scientists along the southeastern coast. 

Climate change is measurably reshaping shark distribution, seasonal timing and hunting behaviour across eastern Australia. 

Researchers say rising human encounters are becoming an unavoidable consequence, one carrying implications for governance and coastal communities.

Ocean Warming and the Southward Push

The East Australian Current is accelerating steadily under sustained global warming pressures each decade. It pushes warmer tropical water further south along the continental shelf, reshaping long standing thermal boundaries. Tropical shark species are following this strengthening marine highway into historically cooler temperate waters.^[1]

Bull sharks and tiger sharks increasingly hold established territory in waters near Sydney and southern New South Wales. Populations once confined largely to subtropical Queensland waters now persist through entire winter seasons. Researchers link this behavioural shift directly to the accelerating strength of the warming current.^[2]

White shark nurseries face a parallel transformation as coastal waters continue warming rapidly each decade. The long established Port Stephens nursery may lose significant thermal suitability within coming decades. Victorian waters near Corner Inlet and the Twofold Shelf could gain new suitability instead.^[3]

CSIRO tagging studies confirm juvenile white sharks consistently favour specific coastal travel corridors each year. These corridors run along the continental shelf between Port Stephens and eastern Victoria, tracing water depths favoured by young sharks. Shifting ocean temperatures could redraw these long established corridors within a single generation.^[4]

Shifting Seasons and Migration Timing

Warming waters are steadily extending bull shark residency along the entire southeastern Australian coast. Favourable temperatures above twenty two degrees now persist across New South Wales for months longer than before. Researchers predict three additional months of suitable habitat availability by the year 2030.^[1]

Winter migration triggers are steadily weakening as southern coastal waters retain summer heat longer each year. Sharks that once reliably fled north each autumn are now lingering later into the season. Acoustic tracking networks confirm many individuals are delaying their traditional equatorward journeys considerably.^[5]

Phenological mismatches are emerging steadily between resident sharks and their traditional migratory prey species. Baitfish schools now arrive earlier in the season than established shark migration patterns anticipate, disrupting long standing ecological timing. This growing timing gap forces predators to adjust their foraging strategies rapidly and unpredictably.^[5]

Some historically transient shark species may now overwinter permanently within southeastern estuaries and sheltered inlets. Warmer estuarine refuges reduce the biological incentive for undertaking long distance seasonal travel altogether. Extended year round residency raises the statistical odds of encounters with recreational water users.^[5]

Behavioural and Foraging Adaptations

Rising ocean temperatures accelerate metabolic rates significantly among ectothermic, cold blooded shark species. Faster metabolism forces sharks to hunt more frequently and more aggressively within busy coastal zones. Increased foraging frequency consistently brings hungry predators closer to popular swimming beaches during warmer months.^[6]

Baitfish, tuna and marine mammal populations are steadily relocating as coastal waters continue warming. Sharks are tracking these moving food sources ever closer toward the immediate coastline, altering long established hunting grounds. Acoustic monitoring networks now reveal predators consistently shadowing displaced prey into shallow bays.^[5]

Heavy rainfall events are steadily reshaping how juvenile bull sharks utilise southeastern river systems and estuaries. Flooded waterways displace prey species into unfamiliar shallow channels near heavily populated residential areas. Nutrient rich runoff draws hungry baitfish into these channels, and bull sharks follow closely behind.^[7]

Marine heatwaves trigger acute, short term behavioural shifts among coastal apex predators along both major coastlines. Warm water species linger longer while established resident species retreat toward cooler southern refuges. Tasmanian waters increasingly host warm water visitors once confined almost entirely to mainland shores.^[8]

Factors Driving Human Encounters

Peak seasonal shark presence increasingly overlaps directly with crowded holiday beach seasons across the southeast. Warmer waters draw sharks progressively south during the very same extended months families gather to swim. This growing overlap concentrates encounter risk during the busiest recreational periods of the year.^[7]

Extreme weather events and shifting baitfish schools are steadily pulling large sharks toward the immediate shoreline. Record breaking rainfall has repeatedly flushed sewage and organic debris into nearby coastal waters. This nutrient surge attracts baitfish, and predators inevitably follow them into busy surf zones.^[7]

Sharks are spending progressively longer seasons within coastal estuaries, harbours and sheltered tidal inlets. These same busy waterways host swimmers, paddlers and recreational anglers throughout the warmer summer months. Extended seasonal overlap steadily raises the statistical chance of unexpected encounters occurring nearby.^[5]

Flooding events regularly cloud coastal waters with sediment, silt and turbid agricultural runoff. Reduced underwater visibility makes it considerably harder for sharks to correctly identify people nearby in the surf. Analysts increasingly consider this a genuine and measurable contributor toward accidental predatory encounters.^[7]

Ecological and Governance Implications

Cold water adapted and warm water adapted apex predators increasingly share the very same coastal range. This growing overlap intensifies direct competition for already dwindling temperate marine prey resources. Vulnerable cool water shark and ray species now face displacement toward marginal, less productive habitat further out from shore.^[2]

New South Wales has substantially expanded drone patrols and SMART drumline coverage in direct response. Over three hundred drumlines now operate daily across nineteen separate local government areas. Officials describe this as the largest and most comprehensive shark mitigation program anywhere in the world.^[9]

Commercial and recreational fisheries face growing uncertainty as target species shift steadily beyond historical management boundaries. Quota systems built around outdated historical ranges risk becoming rapidly and expensively misaligned with reality. Adaptive, climate informed management remains essential for both shark conservation and fishing industry stability.^[2]

Shark driven trophic cascades help actively protect valuable kelp forests from destructive sea urchin overgrazing. Intensifying marine heatwaves threaten this delicate ecological balance across southern Australian reef systems, from Tasmania to Victoria. Losing apex predators from these systems could rapidly accelerate the collapse of critical kelp habitat.^[10]

Climate change is fundamentally reshaping shark ecology along Australia's entire southeastern seaboard. Warmer currents, altered breeding seasons and shifting prey distributions are converging simultaneously across the region. The consequences extend across marine ecosystems, coastal fisheries and everyday public safety.

Government agencies have expanded surveillance, tagging and drone technology considerably in response to these changes. Yet management frameworks still remain largely reactive rather than genuinely anticipatory of future shifts. Long term coastal planning must treat this as permanent structural change rather than a passing seasonal anomaly.

Accountability requires transparent data collection and sustained investment extending well beyond single summer funding cycles. Coastal communities deserve dedicated funding tied directly to credible long term climate projections and evidence. Australia's shark management system must evolve as quickly and deliberately as the ocean around it.

References

1. Predicting changes in distribution of a large coastal shark in the face of the strengthening East Australian Current. Marine Ecology Progress Series modelling shows bull sharks gaining months of suitable NSW habitat as the current strengthens.

2. Global warming to reshape Australian shark and ray populations and raise extinction risk. Australian Marine Conservation Society outlines how a strengthening current pushes tropical species south into competition with temperate residents.

3. Seasonal changes in the habitat suitability of immature white sharks driven by ocean warming. ICES Journal of Marine Science research projects shifting suitability between the Stockton and Twofold Shelf white shark nurseries.

4. White shark research findings. CSIRO tagging identifies juvenile white shark nursery corridors along the New South Wales and Victorian coastlines.

5. Ocean warming increases residency at summering grounds for migrating bull sharks. Science of the Total Environment documents extended bull shark residency linked to accelerated warming in southeastern Australia.

6. Future Distribution of Suitable Habitat for Pelagic Sharks in Australia Under Climate Change Models. Frontiers in Marine Science reviews evidence that elevated temperatures raise shark metabolic and foraging demands.

7. Sharks aren't turning on us, so what's behind the recent spate of attacks. Euronews reports how flooding, runoff and displaced baitfish drew bull sharks toward populated New South Wales beaches.

8. Marine Heatwaves. Fishing Tasmania details how intensifying marine heatwaves are drawing warm water species further into Tasmanian waters.

9. Current Program. The NSW Government describes the Shark Management Program, including SMART drumlines, drones and listening stations.

10. Marine Protected Areas That Preserve Trophic Cascades Promote Resilience of Kelp Forests to Marine Heatwaves. This peer reviewed study shows predator driven trophic cascades help kelp forests withstand marine heatwave disturbance.

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Global warming already causing crop losses of over $20 billion a year - New Scientist

New Scientist - Michael Le Page

Climate change is already having a big impact on crop yields, and the
subsequent financial losses will continue to rise as the world keeps warming

The economies of countries where many people work in farming will be hit the hardest. Imago/Alamy

Global warming-fuelled heat and drought is already hitting yields of maize, wheat and soybeans to the tune of $20 billion a year, a study has estimated. 

This could rise eightfold, to more than $160 billion by 2100, unless we slash emissions.

While the financial losses will be greatest for big producers such as the US, the impacts will be felt most in the lowest-income countries, where the majority of the population works in farming, says Yi Ling Hwong at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. “If you look at the least-developed countries in Africa, the impact is much bigger.” 

This could lead to social unrest and increased migration, she warns.

There is great uncertainty about these kinds of projections, not least because so much depends on how farmers respond and adapt to a continually changing climate, for instance, by switching to different crops or adopting irrigation where it is possible. 

In fact, the whole point of this study is to raise awareness and encourage adaptation, to help ensure these projections turn out to be overestimates, says team member Kai Kornhuber, also at IIASA. “This is the entire mission of climate scientists: we make these cases for people to react, so our projections turn out to be wrong.”

The researchers started by gathering data on the yields per country of maize, wheat and soya from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Next, they took past climate data and calculated the drought level, using a standard approach that estimates soil moisture levels from rainfall and evaporation levels.

Past heat extremes and drought levels were then compared with the yields from 1974 to 2004 to estimate the impact of heat and drought. They then used these statistical correlations to estimate crop losses from 2007 to 2019. 

Their results suggest that increases in heat extremes and drought have caused a 3.5 per cent decline in yields relative to the 1974 to 2004 baseline. “Three per cent or so might not sound like much, but this is a major impact [on] the global food market, which regionally can trigger a severe crisis,” says Kornhuber.

The researchers then calculated the economic losses, based on FAO data showing how much farmers would have been paid for their produce at the time. Finally, they used the same approach to project future losses in several different emissions scenarios, assuming that some adaptation takes place.

In a high-emissions scenario, known as SSP3-7.0, global yields will fall by around 35 per cent by 2100, with annual losses rising to more than $161 billion. “The production losses caused by heat and drought are around 855 million tonnes a year,” says Hwong, who presented the results at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna in May. “I think that is equivalent to what around 2 billion people consume over a year.”

This could be an underestimate of the full impact of climate change for a number of reasons: it’s just three crops, and it doesn’t include flood, storm or rain damage, or the possibility that shortages could lead to big price increases, as is already happening with some other crops such as coffee and cacao.

Jonas Jägermeyr at Columbia University in New York says the study’s reliance on the statistical relationships between yield losses and extreme heat and drought could result in it overestimating the impacts by 2100. “Statistical yield models are great for explaining what’s happening now, and in the near past [or] future, but they are inherently unreliable when pushed into vastly different environmental regimes, such as high-emission climate scenarios by the end of the century.” 

Computer models of how plants are affected by rising CO2 and temperatures are better for projecting what will happen by the end of the century, he says.

Karine Chenu at the University of Queensland, Australia, makes the same point. “Although models are not perfect, they are better suited for this type of extrapolation.” 

However, her team recently released a study, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, showing that two widely used models for wheat make large errors and are especially poor at forecasting the combined effects of extreme heat and drought.

But Kornhuber has defended his team’s use of statistical methods. “The models are remarkable tools, but some of the validation papers have suggested that they might not be super responsive to extremes,” he says. “In our project, extremes were the main focus, so we decided to establish these relationships directly through statistics.”

Links

• EGU General Assembly 2026 DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8148 
• The jet stream may be starting to shift in response to climate change  
• A key solution to climate change isn't happening – and that's good 
• Removing CO2 from the atmosphere by capturing the carbon from burning biomass is supposed to save the planet, but it looks like the flagship project will never happen