Human societies and a multitude of species are going to be tested by climate change in ways that are barely understood, a wide-ranging study involving researchers from 44 institutions around the world has found.
Species in every ecosystem are being affected by rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns, with marine animals moving poleward at the average pace of 72 kilometres and land-based ones 17 kilometres a decade, according to the paper published on Friday in the journal Science.
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| Malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases are spreading as temperatures warm. Photo: AP |
Food security is also at risk from the spread of plant pathogens and other pests.
"This is going to impact on a lot more than you think," said Stephen Williams, a rainforest ecologist and one of the paper's authors.
While some species can adapt by moving either to higher ground or cooler waters, not all can. Human populations, too, are limited in how they can move, depending on how tightly national boundaries are enforced.
"[T]he relative immobility of many human societies, largely imposed by jurisdictional borders, has limited capacity to respond to environmental change by migration," the paper said.
While Australia is known for its fluctuating weather, particularly rainfall, more extreme conditions will challenge many human and animal communities alike. "We're going way outside the boundaries of our natural variability ... more than we appreciate," Professor Williams said.
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| Four hours above 29 degrees and a lemuroid ringtail possum will likely perish. Photo: Wet Tropics Management Authority. |
Heatwaves, if they coincide with dry conditions with little mist or cloud, "can literally crash a population in a number of days", Professor Williams said. "Suddenly it becomes completely unlivable."
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| The UN is seeking $US4.4 billion by the end of March to prevent catastrophic hunger and famine in South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. Photo: WFP/AP |
"Under climate change, everything is very dynamic and moving," Professor Williams said.
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| The biologically rich giant kelp forests off eastern Tasmania are under threat from warm-water predators. Photo: Craig Sanderson |
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions "removes the root cause" of the problem. In the case of tropical rainforests, the number of species expected to disappear will drop from about 60 per cent by the end of the century under business-as-usual emissions to as few as 5 per cent. "It will make a really big difference," he said.
On-going monitoring is needed to track how species are moving, including across state or national boundaries. The collected evidence is limited and, in some cases, being interrupted by funding cuts.
"[L]ong-term datasets for biological systems are rare, and recent trends of declining funding undermine the viability of monitoring programs required to document and respond to climate change," the paper found.
Researchers in a range of Australian programs are awaiting news of their fate, with the federal government due to announce within weeks the next round of funding for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
A Senate inquiry into oceans and climate change heard this month from scientists concerned programs such as the monitoring of the East Australian Current might be at risk.
"We have had this 70-year history of recording temperature and salinity off Sydney, and some smaller arrays off Narooma, on the South Coast [of NSW], Iain Suthers, an oceanographer at the University of NSW told the inquiry. "If that funding were to cease, we would be left absolutely blind as to the strength and changes of that East Australian Current."
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