CSIRO Melbourne Climate Science Labs Look Certain To Close Under Restructure

ABC - Paddy Manning

Chief executive Larry Marshall says the CSIRO is responding to federal funding cuts. (CSIRO)

The CSIRO is going ahead with a controversial restructure that will see between a third and a half of its climate scientists lose their jobs.
Hardest-hit will be CSIRO's Aspendale laboratories in south-east Melbourne, which were set up after World War II to improve weather forecasting and have since gained an international reputation.
The labs look certain to close as part of the shakeup unveiled earlier in the year by chief executive Larry Marshall.
The CSIRO's staff association estimated 32 jobs would be lost from the Aspendale facility, and some staff have already begun to receive redundancy notices.

Key points: Redundancies expected to save $6 million a year 32 jobs estimated to be lost from Aspendale lab Just some of the 74 jobs to go from the Oceans and Atmosphere division CSIRO says it is a response to 70 per cent decline in government funding in past three years

The cuts at the Aspendale lab are just some of the 74 jobs that will go from the Oceans and Atmosphere division of CSIRO.
The redundancies are expected to save $6 million a year.
Dr Graeme Pearman, a former CSIRO scientist who helped set up the agency's climate science team, said he was shocked by the announcement.
"[I've had] a number of reactions; I guess the first one was quite emotional because these are the programs I built up and these are people I employed and worked with," he said.
"The second reaction is, why would you actually make a change to high-quality work related to the climate change issue, right at a time when we are now realising we have a serious problem on our hands?"
Dr Pearman said he felt as though his life's work was unravelling. He described the changes as being close to vandalism, and said he was convinced there was an agenda behind the decision.
"The agenda is this belief structure, this ideology, that somehow or other people who don't actually even know how science operates are audacious enough to say, 'well science should just be about wealth generation'," Dr Pearman said.
"That's an agenda, and we're seeing a possibility of it having a real impact on CSIRO's research."
But chief executive Dr Marshall said the CSIRO was responding to Federal Government funding cuts to climate science programs.
He said funding had fallen by 70 per cent in the past three years and was set to halve again in the next financial year.
"It would be great if we could fund everybody," Dr Marshall said.
"But given the finite envelope — both appropriation, government funding and external revenue — we've got to shift the emphasis from the measurement and modelling to the mitigation and adaptation."
After 18 months as the head of the CSIRO, Dr Marshall said he had never been to the Aspendale labs, but he planned to do visit.
"It was on the list twice, I know the Senate hearing conflicted with one visit, I'm not sure what conflicted with the other," he said.
"All of CSIRO, I'd argue, has outstanding science. That's what makes it so hard."

Closure is inevitable: CSIRO Staff Association
The CSIRO announced an internal review, by Ernst and Young, of the process used to come up with the cuts.
But there have been no suggestions the decision would be changed.
Science Minister Christopher Pyne refused to intervene, arguing the CSIRO was an independent agency.
Senator Kim Carr, the Opposition's Science spokesman, said he wanted staff cuts to be put on hold until after the election.
And he promised if Labor was elected it would direct the CSIRO to stop the restructure.
But Michael Borgas, from the CSIRO Staff Association, conceded the closure of the Aspendale laboratories, and relocation of the remaining scientists, was probably inevitable.
"As much as I'm nostalgic about the place, the vast majority of opinion is we'd go where the work would be done best, the science would be done best," he said.
"Obviously for personal reasons many people wouldn't want to leave Melbourne.
"But if there were better opportunities provided by co-locating with the Bureau of Meteorology or over at Clayton near the Monash scientists, and that we were going to do better science, then that would be the main thing that drove people."

Links

• A hidden agenda? Larry Marshall and the CSIRO's climate scientists
• Shorten pledges $500m for reef as surveys reveal mass coral die-offs
• Leading CSIRO oceanographer 'demotivated' by redundancy news

Australia Simmers Through Hottest Autumn On Record

The Conversation - Andrew King

Summer stayed into autumn in many parts of Australia. Bondi image from www.shutterstock.com

It's the same old story: with 2016 on track to become the hottest year on record globally, and record-breaking heat already evident around the world, Australia has just experienced its hottest autumn on record.

Figures from the Bureau of Meteorology indicate Australia has experienced its hottest autumn on record. Bureau of Meteorology

The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that for average temperatures across Australia, this has been the hottest March-May period ever recorded – beating the previous record, set in 2005, by more than 0.2℃.
Within this period, March was also the hottest on record, while April and May were each the second-warmest in a series extending back to 1910.

Temperatures were well above average across much of the country, especially in the east.  Bureau of Meteorology

Why so hot?
El Niño events tend to cause warmer weather across the east and north of Australia and the major El Niño of 2015-16 undoubtedly contributed to the extreme temperatures experienced across these areas.
However, climate change also played a significant role in our warmest autumn. Previous work, led by ANU climatologist Sophie Lewis, indicates that the human influence on the climate has made a record-breakingly hot autumn roughly 20 times more likely.
In other words, without climate change we would be much less likely to experience autumns as warm as this one has been in Australia.

How we'll remember autumn 2016
In the past few months, Australia has seen many extreme hot weather events. Melbourne experienced its warmest March night on record, while Sydney had a run of 39 days with daytime highs above 26℃, as the summer heat continued long into March.
But it's the coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef that will likely linger in our memories the longest. Some 93% of the reef was found to be affected by bleaching and recent surveys have revealed that more than one-third of coral in the northern and central parts of the reef have died.
Without climate change, a bleaching event like this would be virtually impossible.
The extreme heat over Australia this autumn and the associated damage to the reef are also having an effect on the election campaign. As public concern over the future of the reef grows, the parties are being asked to defend their climate change policies.
Both major parties have made election commitments to the reef, with the Coalition announcing an extra A$6 million to tackle crown-of-thorns starfish (adding to a further A$171 million committed under the 2016 budget), and Labor an extra A$377 million over five years (A$500 million in total). While both Labor and the Coalition aim to improve water quality in the reef through their policies, the coral bleaching and death this year is linked with warm seas.
Whether we'll be able to save parts of the reef largely depends on whether we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and manage to prevent the rising trend in temperatures from continuing.

Links

• Coral Bleaching Taskforce: more than 1,000 km of the Great Barrier Reef has bleached
• Coral bleaching comes to the Great Barrier Reef as record-breaking global temperatures continue
• Great Barrier Reef disaster is the latest harbinger of a global mass extinction
• Great Barrier Reef bleaching would be almost impossible without climate change

Arctic Could Become Ice-Free For First Time In More Than 100,000 Years, Claims Leading Scientist

The Independent - Ian Johnston

Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University predicts we could see 'an area of less than one million square kilometres for September of this year'

Melting Arctic sea ice poses a major threat to polar bears' survival. Rex

The Arctic is on track to be free of sea ice this year or next for the first time in more than 100,000 years, a leading scientist has claimed.
Provisional satellite data produced by the US National Snow & Ice Data Centre shows there were just over 11.1 million square kilometres of sea ice on 1 June this year, compared to the average for the last 30 years of nearly 12.7 million square kilometres.
This difference – more than 1.5 million square kilometres – is about the same size as about six United Kingdoms.
Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, told The Independent that the latest figures largely bore out a controversial prediction he made four years ago.
"My prediction remains that the Arctic ice may well disappear, that is, have an area of less than one million square kilometres for September of this year," he said.
"Even if the ice doesn't completely disappear, it is very likely that this will be a record low year. I'm convinced it will be less than 3.4 million square kilometres [the current record low].
"I think there's a reasonable chance it could get down to a million this year and if it doesn't do it this year, it will do it next year.
High arctic melt: Dramatic shortage of winter sea ice

"Ice free means the central part of the Arctic and the North Pole is ice free."
Most of the remaining ice within the Arctic Circle would be trapped among the myriad of islands along Canada's north coast.
The last time the Arctic was clear of ice is believed to be about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago.
The rapid warming of the polar region has been linked with extreme weather events such as "bomb cyclones", flooding in the UK and out-of-season tornadoes in the United States.
And the sea ice off the north coast of Russia, which normally insulates the water below to keep it cool, is no longer present for much of the year, allowing the sea to get significantly warmer than before.

Scientists have monitored greenhouse gas methane – once frozen on the sea bed – bubbling up to the surface at an alarming rate.
According to one study published in the journal Nature by Professor Wadhams and others, this could produce an average rise in global temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius in just five years.
"That would be a very, very serious upward jerk to global warming," Professor Wadhams said, saying the prospect was "frightening".
Less sea ice also means the surface of the Earth is darker, so it absorbs more of the sun's energy.
"When the sea ice retreats, it changes the whole situation. People are right to be concerned about the sea ice retreat and disappearance mainly because of all these other feedbacks," Professor Wadhams added.
Sea ice is usually at its lowest in September and starts to build again when the winter sets in.
Dr Peter Gleick, a leading climatologist, said he had "no idea" if Professor Wadhams' prediction was correct.
And he added: "If it's wrong, this kind of projection leads to climate sceptics and deniers to criticize the entire community."

Loss of Antarctic ice has soared by 75 per cent in just 10 years.

However Dr Gleick said Professor Wadhams was right to sound a warning about the rising temperatures in the region, saying it was "extraordinarily disturbing even in a world of disturbing news about accelerating climate change".
"An ice-free - and even an ice-reduced - Arctic is leading to global impacts on weather and ecosystems, and most importantly, that the changes in the Arctic presage dramatic fundamental changes in climate throughout the globe," he said.
"We're on a runaway train, scientists are blowing the whistle, but politicians are still shovelling coal into the engine."

Professor Jennifer Francis, of Rutgers University, says 'We are definitely looking at a very unusual situation up in the Arctic' (Wolfgang Kaehler/Getty)

 Professor Jennifer Francis, of Rutgers University in the US, who has studied the effect of the Arctic on the weather in the rest of the northern hemisphere, was also sceptical about Professor Wadhams' prediction, saying it was "highly unlikely" to come true this year.
She said she thought this would not happen until sometime between 2030 and 2050.
But Professor Francis stressed: "We are definitely looking at a very unusual situation up in the Arctic.
"The ice is very low and there have been record-breaking low amounts of ice in January, February, March, April and now May, so this is very worrisome.
"I think we are going to see perhaps a new record [in September], that's very possible."

Links

• Arctic warming: Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning
• Arctic warming: Rapidly increasing temperatures are 'possibly catastrophic' for planet, climate scientist warns