(AU The Guardian) California Will Name And Categorise Heatwaves – Should Australia Follow Suit?

The Guardian - Royce Kurmelovs

Heatwaves kill more people in Australia than all other natural disasters combined, and some experts believe naming them might help reduce deaths

Bondi Beach during a heatwave in January. Naming heatwaves may lead people to be more conscious of them, say researchers. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

California has become the latest jurisdictions to set up a system that would categorise and name heatwaves like cyclones or hurricanes, raising questions about whether Australia should adopt a similar system to reduce heat-related deaths.

Following the recent example of Greece and the city of Seville in Spain, authorities in California will introduce a bill in January to develop the ranking system.

The proposed system works by naming heatwaves and categorising them similar to cyclones, but instead of being coded by temperature they will be ranked according to their risk to human health – and specifically, the risk of death.

For example, a category 1 heatwave might occur when the daily mortality rate was expected to climb by 10% on a normal day, with category 2 and 3 heatwaves rising further.

When a category 3 heatwave would be declared, it may lead to the opening of swimming pools and air-conditioned shelters to the public, the activation of check-in services for the elderly, or a ban on utility companies cutting off the power for the period of the heatwave to ensure access to air conditioning.

Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at UNSW Canberra’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said it was a “great idea” that should be adopted in Australia.

“I think naming [weather events] helps people to connect with them on a personal level. It’s personifies it,” Perkins-Kirkpatrick said. “But for example, Cyclone Tracy – just the name itself evokes how severe it was and the impact it had.

“It’s also an exercise in science communication. It helps people say, ‘oh, there’s a heatwave, I need to take cover and do this, or do that’.”

Dr Alistair Hobday, a research scientist at the CSIRO who was part of the team that proposed an informal system used to categorise and name marine heatwaves, said while he was cautious about naming systems, the value of the Californian approach was the way it suggested action.

“I think we’re going to see many people in Australia experience events they have never experienced and they won’t know how to respond. This will help with that risk,” Hobday said.

“At the moment it’s left up to individuals, but we know wealthier individuals survive events better than poorer individuals because they have more resources. Legislating this will require resources to be made available to everyone.”

Australians might be keenly familiar with heatwaves but Perkins-Kirkpatrick said many people were unaware of just how dangerous they were or their role as the country’s “most deadly natural disaster”.

“Heatwaves kill more people in Australia than all other natural disasters combined by a long shot,” she said.

“And one fun fact: more people die on 27 January from extreme heat than they do on any other day of the year, because it’s the day after Australia Day.

“Everyone’s dehydrated, they’re out in the sun, they’ve been drinking beers, their body starts to suffer heatstroke and they get rushed to hospital.”

The Bureau of Meteorology currently has no plans to adopt a naming convention for heatwaves but it does publish a heatwave intensity map, run a forecast service and already categorises heatwaves by intensity.

Formalising this has sometimes proven tricky, as defining the length, breadth and areas affected by a heatwave is not easy – a category 3 heatwave might be declared in Melbourne but a category 2 heatwave may occur in Geelong during the same event.

There is no global standard for what makes a heatwave, though in Australia it is defined as three or more days in a row when both daytime and night-time temperatures are unusually high relative to local conditions and recent history.

The good news, Perkins-Kirkpatrick said, is that with the work done by the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia was already “halfway there” to setting up such a system.

“We’ve only had a heatwave forecast for about a decade here. The bureau’s done a damn good job to get that together,” she said. “I think it’s a great idea, and it’s something we need to push for. It isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.”

Links

• Greece plans to name heatwaves in the same way as storms
• Bureau of Meteorology: Tropical cyclone names
• Bureau of Meteorology: Heatwave Service for Australia
• Bureau of Meteorology: Understanding heatwaves
• Bureau of Meteorology: Heatwave Assessment and Forecast
• Bushfire crisis: more than half of all Australians found to have been directly affected
• Rising temperatures could imperil future of Boxing Day Test cricket, report warns
• Too hot for humans? First Nations people fear becoming Australia's first climate refugees
• Leading scientists condemn political inaction on climate change as Australia 'literally burns'

(AU The Conversation) Invasive Species Are Threatening Antarctica’s Fragile Ecosystems As Human Activity Grows And The World Warms

The Conversation - Dana M Bergstrom | Shavawn Donoghue

Dana Bergstrom

Authors Dana M Bergstrom is Principal Research Scientist, University of Wollongong Shavawn Donoghue is Adjunct Researcher, University of Tasmania

We tend to think Antarctica is isolated and far away – biologically speaking, this is true. But the continent is busier than you probably imagine, with many national programs and tourist operators crisscrossing the globe to get there.

And each vessel, each cargo item, and each person could be harbouring non-native species, hitchhiking their way south. This threat to Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem is what our new evaluation, released today, grapples with.

We mapped the last five years of planes and ships visiting the continent, illuminating for the first time the extent of travel across the hemispheres and the potential source locations for non-native species, as the map below shows. We found that, luckily, while some have breached Antarctica, they generally have yet to get a stranglehold, leaving the continent still relatively pristine.

But Antarctica is getting busier, with new research stations, rebuilding and more tourism activities planned. Our challenge is to keep it pristine under this growing human activity and climate change threat.

Life evolved in isolation

Biodiversity-wise, much of the planet is mixed up. The scientific term is homogenisation, where species, such as weeds, pests and diseases, from one place are transported elsewhere and establish. This means they begin to reproduce and influence the ecosystem, often to the detriment of the locals.

Most life in Antarctica is jammed onto tiny coastal ice-free fringes, and this is where most research stations, ships and people are.

This includes unique animals (think Adélie penguins, Weddell seals and snow petrels), mosses and lichens that harbour tiny invertebrates (such as mites, waterbears and springtails), and an array of microbes such as cyanobacteria. The adjacent coast and ocean team with life, too.

The more we learn about them, the more outstanding life at the end of the planetary spectrum becomes. Just this week, new scientific discoveries identified that some Antarctic bacteria live on air, and make their own water using hydrogen as fuel.

The endemic Antarctic Weddell seal resting on sea ice. EPA/YONHAP

When the Southern Ocean was formed some 30 million years ago, natural barriers were created with the rest of the world. This includes the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the strongest ocean current on the planet, and its associated strong westerly surface winds, icy air and ocean temperatures.

This means life in Antarctica evolved in isolation, with flora and fauna that commonly exist nowhere else and can cope with frigid conditions. But the simplicity of Antarctica’s food webs can often mean there are gaps in the ecosystem that other species from around the world can fill.

In May 2014, for example, routine biosecurity surveillance detected non-native springtails (tiny insect-like invertebrates) in a hydroponic facility at an Australian Antarctic station.

This station, an ice-free oasis, previously lacked these interlopers, and they had the potential to alter the local fragile ecosystem permanently. Thankfully, a rapid and effective response successfully eradicated them.

Gentoo penguin on a bed of algae, Antarctica. Shutterstock

Pressures from climate change are exacerbating the challenges of human activity on Antarctica, as climate change is bringing milder conditions to these wildlife-rich areas, both on land and sea.

As glaciers melt, new areas are exposed, which allows non-Antarctic species greater opportunity to establish and possibly outcompete locals for resources, such as nutrients and precious, ice-free space.

So far, we’ve been lucky

Our past research focused on non-native propagules – things that propagate like microbes, viruses, seeds, spores, insects and pregnant rats – and how they entrain themselves into Antarctica.

They can be easily caught on people’s clothing and equipment, in fresh food, cargo and machinery. In fact, research from the last decade found that visitors who hadn’t cleaned their clothing and equipment carried on average nine seeds each.

Pathways for non native species. Dana M Bergstrom

But few non-native species have established in Antarctica, despite their best efforts.

To date, only 11 non-native invertebrate species – including springtails, mites, a midge and an earthworm – have established across a range of locations in the warmer parts of Antarctica, including Signy Island and the Antarctic Peninsula. In the marine realm, some non-native species have been seen but it’s thought none have survived and established.

Microbes are another matter. Each visitor to Antarctica carries millions of microbial passengers, and many of these microbes are left behind. Around most research stations, human gut microbes from sewage have mingled with native microbes, including exchanging antibiotic resistance genes.

Last year, for example, a rare harmful bacteria, pathogenic to both humans and birds, was detected in guano (poo) from both Adélie and gentoo penguin colonies at sites with high rates of human visitors. COVID-19 also made its way to Antarctica last December.

Both these cases risk so-called “reverse zoonosis”, where humans spread disease to local wildlife.

Antarctica’s coral reefs? Extensive shallow water, polychete colonies form fragile reefs that act as marine animal forests, hosting a diverse and abundant community of associated plants and animals. Jonny Stark/ AAD

What do we do about it?

Three factors have helped maintain Antarctica’s near-pristine status: the physical isolation, cold conditions and co-operation between nations through the Antarctic Treaty. The Treaty is underpinned by the Environmental Protocol, which aims to prevent and respond to threats and pressures to the continent.

There is unanimous commitment from Antarctic Treaty nations towards preventing the establishment of non-native species. This includes adopting a science-based, non-native species manual, which provides guidance on how to prevent, monitor, and respond to introductions of non-native species.

But time is of the essence. We must better prepare for the inevitable arrival of more non-native species to prevent them from establishing, as we continue to break the barriers protecting Antarctica. One approach is to tailor the newly developed 3As approach to environmental management: Awareness of values, Anticipation of the pressures, Action to stem the pressures.

This means ramping up monitoring, taking note of predictions of what non-native species could sneak through biosecurity and establish under new conditions, and putting in place pre-determined response plans to act quickly when they do.

Links

• (ScienceAlert) Warming Events Could Destabilize The Antarctic Ice Sheet Soon. Very Soon
• (AU ABC) Can The Antarctic Treaty Protect One Of The World's Last Great Wildernesses From Climate Change?
• (AU SMH) Global Warming Pushing Emperor Penguins To Brink Of Extinction By 2100
• (The Guardian) Global Heating Pace Risks ‘Unstoppable’ Sea Level Rise As Antarctic Ice Sheet Melts
• Explainer: how the Antarctic Circumpolar Current helps keep Antarctica frozen
• COVID has reached Antarctica. Scientists are extremely concerned for its wildlife
• 'Existential threat to our survival': see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing
• Do assessments of fish stock sustainability work for consumers?

(AU SMH) Where To Start?: Boards Struggle With Climate Change Risks, Fail To Act

Sydney Morning Herald - Patrick Hatch

Many Australian boards are struggling to prepare their companies or organisations for climate change, with almost half the country’s directors saying they don’t know how to tackle the issue.

A first-of-its-kind study by the Australian Institute of Company Directors into how boards are approaching climate change reveals that 77 per cent of directors are concerned about how it will affect their organisation, but often failed to act.

Almost half of the directors surveyed said their boards should pay more attention to climate but did not know how to do so. Credit:Getty

“It’s not that people ignore the issue, it’s that they don’t know where to start,” said AICD managing director Angus Armour.

The AICD report is based on surveys of 2000 directors at ASX listed companies, smaller businesses, government organisations and not for profits.

Almost half of the directors surveyed said their boards should pay more attention to climate but did not know how to do so, while 28 per cent did not think their board had the knowledge or experience to adequately address climate governance issues.

Mr Armour said directors should be working to understand their organisation’s impact on climate, and how climate change will impact them.

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“Then it’s contemplating both how you can improve your own position relative to climate change and look for opportunities to in fact make your firm stronger,” he said.

“As our regulatory tools around climate change and our reporting tools around climate change continue to develop, there will be a bedrock requirement for firms to address that.”

Even smaller businesses would soon need to address demands from consumers, larger supply chain customers and their staff for transparency around their environmental footprint.

“There’ll be some protections for a while but transparency around reporting is just going to continue to increase,” Mr Armour said.

Across all directors, only 11 per cent disagreed that their board needed to do more to respond to climate change, but that rose to 22 per cent in the mining sector.

“It’s not that people ignore the issue, it’s that they don’t know where to start."
AICD managing director Angus Armour

One in four directors in the mining sector were “not at all concerned” about climate risk to their company, which compared to one in five across all industries and only 8 per cent in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector.

Mr Armour said many mining companies already dedicated significant resources to the issue which could explain why their boards were less likely to think more work was required, but the data collected was inconclusive.

Directors of ASX-listed companies were less likely to be “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned about how climate change risks (48 per cent) compared to directors on government or public sector boards (70 per cent). Around half also saw opportunities for their organisation by proactively responding to climate change.

Environmental protection

Can lawsuits, boardroom takeovers and protests save the planet?

Mr Armour said that regulatory or political uncertainty and the “operational effects” of climate change were the two largest concerns directors had about how climate change would affect their business, followed by the impact on profit of mitigating climate change.

Directors said the biggest obstacle to acting was the absence of a settled national climate change policy (46 per cent, the most common response) while 38 per cent said their board did not have the time or resources to deal with it.

Less than half of directors (46 per cent) said their board had embedded climate change in their risk management framework, which the report says, “suggests that risk may not be adequately monitored at board level.“

Links

• Climate Governance Study: Risk and opportunity insights from Australian directors
• Climate crisis requires boards to put climate transition at the heart of corporate strategy, says international network of board directors
• Can lawsuits, boardroom takeovers and protests save the planet?
• Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
• The Adani List: Companies that could make or break the Carmichael Coal Project
• The climate clock: What’s the world’s carbon budget and what’s Australia’s share?
• Business Council calls for 46-50% emissions reduction by 2030 on path to net zero