15/11/2019

(AU) Former Australian Fire Chiefs Say Coalition Ignored Their Advice Because Of Climate Change Politics

The Guardian - 

Former heads of state fire services say government ‘fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change’
A coalition of former Australian state fire and emergency chiefs says the government ‘doesn’t like talking about climate change’ and politics was why it was ignoring their advice. Photograph: Darren Pateman/AAP
A coalition of former fire chiefs have said the government “fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change” and that politics is the reason the government was ignoring their advice.
Former heads of the New South Wales, Queensland, Victorian and Tasmanian fire services met in Sydney on Thursday after fires that killed four people tore through the the Australian east coast this week.
They said the climate crisis was making bushfires deadlier and bushfire season longer, and the federal government needed to act immediately.
“Just a 1C temperature rise has meant the extremes are far more extreme, and it is placing lives at risk, including firefighters,” said Greg Mullins, the former chief of NSW Fire and Rescue. “Climate change has supercharged the bushfire problem.”
“Bushfires are a symptom of climate change,” said Neil Bibby, the former chief executive of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority.
“Firefighters are the immune system that gets rid of that symptom. But [the problem is] still there.”
Mullins said he and 23 other fire and emergency chiefs had been trying to have a meeting with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, since April because they “knew that a bushfire crisis was coming”.
Instead, he said current fire chiefs had been locked out of discussions and were “not allowed” to mention climate change.
Former emergency services chiefs – Bob Conroy, Lee Johnson, Mike Brown, Neil Bibby and Greg Mullins – say the government “fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change”. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
“This government fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change,” Mullins said. “We would like the doors to be open to the current chiefs, and allow them to utter the words ‘climate change’. They are not allowed to at the moment.
“The Grenfell fire in London, people talked about the cause from day one. Train crashes they talk from day one. And it is OK to say it is an arsonist’s fault, or pretend that the greenies are stopping hazard reduction burning, which is simply not true.
“But you are not allowed to talk about climate change. Well, we are, because we know what is happening.”
Bibby, who was in charge during Victoria’s Black Saturday, said politics was the reason the government was ignoring the former fire chiefs’ advice.
Other interstate fire chiefs were outspoken about the effect global heating has on bushfires.
Lee Johnson, the former commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, wanted immediate action.
“I’m here for my children and grandchildren,” he said. “In Queensland in the last couple of weeks we have seen unprecedented fires … The fires are impacting on areas that haven’t known fires for millennia.
Mullins said the bushfire emergency was underlaid by a climate emergency.
“On the 6th of September, southeast Queensland and NSW experienced record fire weather, never before experienced in September. On the 8th of November, again we had record-breaking fire weather in NSW.
“And on the 12th of November, for the first time ever, Sydney experienced catastrophic fire danger. Fires are literally off the scale on this warming planet.”
The link between climate change and bushfire risk became a political flashpoint this week.
On Monday the Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said it galled him when “inner-city lefties” raised climate change in relation to bushfires.
“We’ve had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance – they need help, they need shelter,” he told ABC Radio.
“They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time, when they’re trying to save their homes, when in fact they’re going out in many cases saving other peoples’ homes and leaving their own homes at risk.”
The NSW Nationals leader, John Barilaro, said it was “a disgrace” for anyone to talk about climate change during the bushfires.
But on Wednesday the Liberal MP and NSW environment minister, Matt Kean, said climate change “is a real issue” and “requires a decisive response”. He said science was clear that “our changing climate is seeing more extreme weather events”.
In an escalating political debate, Greens senator Jordon Steele-John branded major party politicians “arsonists” for supporting the coal industry.
“You are no better than a bunch of arsonists – borderline arsonists – and you should be ashamed,” he told the Senate.
The former fire chiefs had two requests for the government: more resources for firefighters; take on “the fundamental problem” of climate change.
Mullins said he was told the energy minister, Angus Taylor, would speak to him and the water minister, David Littleproud, has set a meeting.
“None of us can understand why climate change in Australia is so political,” he said. “In the UK, the conservatives, Margaret Thatcher, said years ago this is a major problem.”

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(AU) Australia Bushfires Renew Anger Over Climate Change

Agence France-Presse

The bushfire season has started earlier than usual, raising fears of a terrible summer ahead. AFP / PETER PARKS

Unprecedented bushfires in eastern Australia have turbocharged demands the country's conservative government do more to tackle climate change, and have rekindled an ideological fight over the science behind the blazes.
The huge fires have touched communities up and down the east coast, killing four people and affecting millions of Australians -- threatening homes and blanketing major cities in hazardous smoke.
For many, the scale and intensity of the conflagrations, weeks before the Australian summer, have brought the dangers of climate change home.
"The whole east coast is on fire," said Julie Jones, who almost lost her house in the Blue Mountains. "I think it's climate change."
A group of ex-fire chiefs on Thursday warned climate change is "supercharging" the bushfire problem and they challenged Prime Minister Scott Morrison over his failure to confront the issue.
"I am fundamentally concerned about the impact and the damage coming from climate change," former fire chief Lee Johnson said.
"The word 'unprecedented' has been used a lot, but it's correct."
For days Morrison has refused to address the link between climate and bushfires, arguing the focus should be on victims -- despite being heckled about climate change while touring fire-ravaged areas.
AFP / Laurence CHU

Morrison has made no secret of his support for the country's lucrative mining industry, which accounts for more than 70 percent of exports and was worth a record Aus$264 billion ($180 billion) in the last financial year.
He once carried a lump of coal onto the floor of the Australian parliament and recently proposed banning environmental boycotts of businesses.
His government insists Australia will meet its Paris climate agreement target of reducing emissions by 26-28 percent on 2005 levels by 2030.
But the approval of vast coal mines like the controversial Adani project -- which will ship most of its product overseas to be burned -- make global targets of keeping warming below 1.5 Celsius more difficult.
- 'Woke greenies' -
Until now that has been good politics for the Liberal leader. His party unexpectedly won re-election in May, in part by framing the climate debate as a choice between jobs and higher energy costs in places like coal-rich Queensland.
Morrison's allies have also deployed the issue as a potent wedge issue to divide the electorate.
AFP / Jonathan WALTER
When the Australian Greens attacked the government response to the bushfires this week, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack went on the offensive.
"We don't need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital cities greenies at this time, when (people) are trying to save their homes," he said.
But the scale of the bushfire crisis has made it more difficult for Morrison to dismiss his political foes as out-of-touch lefty city slickers.
And after several exhausting days of spearheading crisis response, commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said Wednesday the New South Wales Rural Fire Service acknowledged the new reality.
"We are mindful that the science is suggesting that fire seasons are starting earlier, and extending longer," he said.
Politicians who refuse to discuss climate change have been heckled as they tour areas destroyed by fire. AFP / WILLIAM WEST
The government's own Bureau of Meteorology has acknowledged human-caused climate change is "influencing the frequency and severity of dangerous bushfire conditions".
Scientists say the link between climate change and bush fires is complex, but undeniable.
Wind movements around Antarctica and sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean can also help determine fire-friendly conditions in Australia.
But warming provides key ingredients for fires to thrive: high temperatures, low humidity, strong winds and drought.
"Bushfires are not directly attributable to climate change," said Janet Stanley of the University of Melbourne. "However, the fast-warming climate is making bushfires more frequent and intense."
"The mountain of irrefutable evidence linking global warming to bushfires makes the federal government's failure to act -- or even talk about the problem -- extremely hard to explain," she said.
Away from the political bickering, a growing number of Australians appear to agree.
A 2019 survey by think tank The Australia Institute found 81 percent of people are concerned climate change will cause more droughts and flooding, while 64 percent want the government to set a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Claire Pontin, a deputy mayor in badly-hit northern New South Wales, told the ABC it was "always" the right time to discuss climate change.
"It's not going to go away if we bury our heads in the sand."

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(AU) Australia's Climate Response Among The Worst In The G20, Report Finds

The Guardian - 

Brown to Green report highlights Australia’s poor response on deforestation, transport, energy supply and carbon pricing
Scott Morrison with his lump of coal during a parliamentary debate in 2017. A comparison of G20 countries has found Australia’s response to the climate crisis has been among the worst. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP 
Australia’s response to climate change is one of the worst in the G20 with a lack of policy, reliance on fossil fuels and rising emissions leaving the country exposed “economically, politically and environmentally”, according to a new international report.
Australia’s progress to meeting its already “unambitious” Paris climate targets was third worst, fossil fuel energy was on the rise and policies to tackle high transport emissions and deforestation were also among the worst across the G20 countries.
The Brown to Green report, now in its fifth year, takes stock of the performance of G20 countries on climate change adaptation and mitigation across key sectors, and in the finance sector.
The chief executive of Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, an Australian co-author of the report, told Guardian Australia: “Australia is behind [on] climate action in nearly every dimension. Australia’s emissions are increasing and there’s virtually no policy in place to reduce them.”
Some 14 non-governmental groups, thinktanks and research institutes compile the report, funded by the World Bank, the US-based ClimateWorks Foundation and Germany’s environment ministry.
Across the G20, the report said, limiting global heating to 1.5C would cut negative impacts by 70%, compared with allowing global temperatures to rise by 3C. Currently, extreme weather events were costing G20 countries about US$142bn annually.
While the report doesn’t provide an overall ranking, Australia appears consistently among the worst performers in the report’s analysis.
India and Australia were the only two G20 countries that had not introduced, or were not considering, policies to price greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.
Only South Korea and Canada were further away than Australia from meeting the pledges that formed their Paris climate commitments.
On deforestation, the report said Australia was the only developed country that was a “deforestation hotspot”, but had no policies to tackle it.
Australia was ranked third worst for transport emissions per capita, and the report found “Australia, in particular, lacking significant policy” in the transport sector. Per capita emissions from aviation were 53 times higher than India’s.
Australia, along with Russia, had no policies to move away from petrol-powered cars, no policies to decarbonise the heavy-duty vehicle sector and no policies to shift people onto public transport, the report said.
Australia, along with the US and Saudi Arabia, had high emissions from the building sector. Australia had no building codes covering renovation of older buildings.
All this lack of action, Hare said, was leaving Australia and its people exposed on climate change “economically, politically and environmentally”.
Hare told Guardian Australia: “The leadership of the country is effectively telling lies about their performance, and contradicting their own government’s information.
“The country is led by politicians who in one way or another deny either the science or are de facto denying it, and actively and wilfully opposing or obstructing climate policies.”
Referring to the current Liberal-led Coalition government, Hare said this was the same political party that had repealed climate legislation, such as the carbon pricing mechanism, and “since then has done all it can to undermine any level of action”.
He said the country’s position was in contrast with its opportunities in renewable energy, which it had not exploited as fully as it could.
“Australia has one of the best solar energy potential and wind potential in general of any of the G20 countries,” he said.
“Australia is not transforming its energy system and is focused on building coal and gas, and has not paid any attention to the need to transition to a zero-carbon economy.”


Young Australians talk climate change
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14/11/2019

Greta Thunberg Catches Lift To UN COP25 Climate Summit In Madrid With Australian Sailing Couple

ABC News - Rhiannon Shine | James Carmody

Riley Whitelum, Nikki Henderson, Greta Thunberg and Elayna Carausu with her son Lenny on their yacht preparing to set sail. (Facebook: Greta Thunberg)
Key Points
  • Greta Thunberg is one of the world's highest profile environmental activists
  • She was stranded in the US after travelling there to attend a UN climate summit
  • She will travel to the new summit location in Spain with an Australian couple
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg will make the COP25 UN climate summit after hitching a ride back across the Atlantic with an Australian couple travelling the world.
The 16-year-old had travelled from her native Sweden to California by boat, train and electric car and was planning to continue on to the next round of climate negotiations, originally scheduled to be held in Santiago, Chile in December.
The Santiago summit was cancelled by Chile's government because of political unrest in the South American country and moved to the Spanish capital of Madrid.
Ms Thunberg refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions involved and had been searching for an environmentally-friendly way to travel back to Europe to attend the summit.


Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg lands in New York City following 14-day trans-Atlantic trip (ABC News)

"As #COP25 has officially been moved from Santiago to Madrid I'll need some help," Ms Thunberg tweeted earlier this month.
"Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November … If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful."

Australian couple to the rescue
A week ago, South Australian Riley Whitelum, who travels around the world in a 48-foot catamaran called La Vagabonde with his West Australian partner Elayna Carausu and their son Lenny, responded to the tweet with an offer of help.
Ms Thunberg posted to her Instagram page earlier today saying she had accepted the offer from the couple, who will take her from Virginia to Spain with the help of professional yachtswoman Nikki Henderson.
"So happy to say that I'll hopefully make it to COP25 in Madrid," Ms Thunberg said.
Greta Thunberg (centre) and British sailor Nikki Henderson (second right) are joining the couple on the catamaran La Vagabonde. (Facebook: Sailing La Vagabonde)
"I've been offered a ride from Virginia on the 48ft catamaran La Vagabonde. We sail for Europe tomorrow morning!"
Ms Thunberg said she expected the voyage to take three weeks.
"If I get to the COP25 in time then I will participate in that because I received an invitation to do so. And then I will go home," she said.

A voyage funded by YouTube
Mr Whitelum and Ms Carausu have been sailing around the world since 2014, filming their adventures and posting them to YouTube where they have amassed more than 1 million followers.
"We've suffered terrifying storms, pirate scares, financial breakdowns, equipment failures, water shortages and other interesting mishaps, but we wouldn't trade living on the sea and traveling wherever the wind takes us for anything," their website states.


Sailing La Vagabonde — 'Our TINY HOME on the Ocean'

Ms Carausu posted to Instagram that the crew would set sail from 7:30am US eastern standard time tomorrow.
Ms Thunberg rose to prominence last year after she started spending her Fridays protesting outside Sweden's parliament.


Greta Thunberg angrily denounced world leaders for failing to tackle climate change. (ABC News)

Her action has grown into a global campaign, with an estimated 300,000 Australians taking part in climate change rallies around the country in September.
Ms Thunberg's zero-emissions expedition has been highly publicised and has included travelling by boat, train and an electric car borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Final preparations underway
Speaking to ABC Radio Perth from aboard La Vagabonde docked in Virginia, Mr Whitelum said he was surprised when he heard back from Ms Thunberg, but he thought they were suitable travel companions.


The YouTube couple landed a million-dollar yacht in a deal with a catamaran manufacturer

"Elayna and I responded [to Ms Thunberg's tweet], and about a week later here we are about to sail 3,000 nautical miles across to Europe," he said.
"It sort of came back through to us through a back channel and they just said, 'are you available, do you think you can do it? We've been let down a couple of times, are you sure you would be able to do it?'"
Mr Whitelum said after confirming they were up for the challenge, he and Ms Carausu had been busy preparing for the trip and getting to know Ms Thunberg.
"When I met her I wasn't ready for quite how young and short she would be," he said.
"We've been hanging out basically for the last five or six days getting the boat prepared.
"She's smart, kind of powerful and independent, she's a good person to have around."
Mr Whitelum said while he and Ms Carausu had crossed the Atlantic twice before as well as the Pacific Ocean, and had about 70,000 nautical miles of sailing under their belts, getting to Madrid would be no mean feat.
"The journey is long and fairly complicated. The northern Atlantic at this time of year is fairly treacherous," he said.
"We're working with some of the best weather routers in the world.
"On this particular trip the first 500 or 600 nautical miles are super important, so it's good that we've been able to choose our window, which is tomorrow morning."

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(UK) A Legal Approach To Fighting Climate Change

New York Times - Farah Nayeri

Gillian Lobo is the senior lawyer for ClientEarth, an environmental law charity. 
Credit...Suzanne Plunkett for The New York Times
LONDON — What does Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour have in common with the London-based environmental law charity ClientEarth?
Quite a lot, as it happens. Mr. Gilmour sold his guitar collection for $21.5 million at Christie’s New York in June — and donated every penny to ClientEarth to help it fight climate change.
For a nonprofit with rock-star benefactors, ClientEarth is fairly low key. It operates in the background, incrementally and strategically, much like the lawyer who set up its climate team four years ago, Gillian Lobo.
Ms. Lobo, a Briton of Indian descent who spent the first six years of her life in Tanzania and Kenya, started her legal career at a private practice in Croydon (outside London), then became an in-house lawyer for Royal Mail, the postal service.
From 2006 to 2015, she worked for the British government, mostly as a litigator in military cases. Starting in 2010, she was part of the team that defended the Ministry of Defense against negligence claims linked to the deaths of three British servicemen and the serious injuries of two others in “friendly fire” episodes in Iraq.
She joined ClientEarth in 2015 and has been busy taking the British government to court pretty much ever since.
While the bulk of her career has taken place in Britain, she also spent six months volunteering for the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda in 2002, eight years after the genocide. In the following conversation, which was edited and condensed, she began by recalling the experience.

 What was Rwanda like?
It was a real eye-opener. I went out to all the projects — schools, medical institutions, places that trained people in agriculture. You could see how local people, given the knowledge and the ability, could actually do a lot for themselves, how effective projects could be.
I also saw how powerless people are treated. The authorities can abuse street children in any way, hit them, and no one can step in.
I saw a little boy being beaten in Kigali. We were trained to be careful not to enter into situations that we didn’t know the outcome of. You can go in and try and protect that child, and once you’re out of there, the police are going to take out any humiliation that you’ve heaped on them on that person. That was really important training.
It’s about being strategic. It’s pointless just tampering at the edges: You need to change important infrastructures.

 Why did you choose climate as a field?
If you don’t get this sorted out, all of the development work that you ever wanted to do is never going to get off the ground. It’s all linked to droughts, water supply, how people work. The places that are being impacted are the ones that can least afford it: the droughts, the rains, the typhoons, the hurricanes, the increased heat that’s going to reduce the nutrient value of food growing in soil.

One could argue that what you do will produce benefits in the future, but won’t put bread on people’s table now.
We should be doing both. If you don’t get the fundamentals right, these problems are going to get worse and worse. If you build carefully and strategically, you can have an immediate impact.
You want to stop subsidies going to companies producing fossil fuels. You want subsidies going to renewables, or for it to be a level playing field — meaning no subsidies. Then renewables can increase, and immediately that money can go to something that’s going to protect the environment. It can also create jobs at a local level. People can be a bit more self-sufficient and have control of their lives.
Credit...Suzanne Plunkett for The New York Times
What is the impact of climate change on women?
The impact is big, because the women most affected are generally poor women. They’re disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events and droughts. They’re usually the ones who have to go and collect water, and if there’s a drought, they have to go further. They’re the ones who collect wood, who feed the children. As the men go to the cities, they’re left on their own. And women, through wars and everything else, are more vulnerable — physically, sexually. It just makes everything a lot worse.

What is women’s role in fighting climate change?
Fundamental. They need to be part of the discussion, because they’re the ones on the ground. They’re seeing what’s happening. They can feed in far more valuable information about what’s happening to the land, what’s happening to the water, what improvements can be done, and how things are changing around them.
These women have cultural knowledge. They have practical, actual knowledge on the way to deal with climate change. That’s what you need.

What do you see as your own role in the world?
I can help develop the lawyers of the future, to work with these lawyers who are so bright but not necessarily experienced enough, and give them the tools and empower them.

To do what?
My aim is to make the world a fairer place. I believe in fairness, I believe in justice. I do recognize that the law is about tactics, strategies, doing the right thing at the right time. It can be seen as game playing. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy it. But it’s not always about justice.
I believe in the rule of law and the need to maintain it. So much is being stripped from it across different states.
I also work on access to justice in the U.K. We’re trying to ensure that the cost for N.G.O.s and individuals bringing claims in order to protect the environment are kept as low as possible.

Where would you like to be in 10 or 20 years?
I’d like to have left a legacy where the law is safeguarded from fickle arbitrary executive decisions; where people can access and protect their environment, which is so important; and where we protect the world as much as we can from climate impacts.

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Climate Visuals Photography Award 2019: Winners And Shortlisted

The Guardian

Climate Visuals is a project that aims to create a new visual language for climate change. Images of polar bears, melting ice and factories do not convey the urgent human stories at the heart of the issue. Based on international social research, Climate Visuals provides insights for a more compelling visual language for climate change. It has recognised existing and outstanding images with impact for its inaugural photography awards. The project is run by Climate Outreach, Europe’s leading climate communication organisation, which celebrated its 15th anniversary on 7 November
Winner
2019 Climate Visuals Photography Award
Solar Power
Ann Johanssen
Shohida Begum poses for photographs lit by a solar powered lantern in a slum where she lives in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Date taken: 11/11/2018
Shortlisted
2019 Climate Visuals Photography Award
High on Tide Mousuni Island
Sumit Sanyal
A man collecting water from a hand pump while huge waves caused by high tides strikes the edges. Where the pump is located, the wall has been destroyed due to erosion from tidal flooding. Date taken: 11/10/2018
Shortlisted
2019 Climate Visuals Photography Award
Destroyed Shoe Shop
Kianoush Saadati
Severe floods struck Golestan province of Iran in March and affected 10 cities: Gorgan, Bandar Turkman, Azad Shahr, Aq Qqala, Gonbad-e Kavus, Bandar-e Gaz, Ali Abad, Kalaleh, Kordkuy, and Minodasht. The heavy rain in Golestan was unprecedented, with 70% of average annual rain falling in the first 24 hours. In Golestan and Mazandran provinces, 11 people were confirmed dead and an estimated 20 people injured. Over 60,000 people were affected by the flooding, with at least 10,000 people are provided emergency shelter in stadiums, exhibition areas, schools. Date taken: 21/03/2019
Shortlisted
2019 Climate Visuals Photography Award
Looking Through The Doorway

Greta Rybus
A man looks through a doorway, which just hours before lead to another room in his home. The sea, which has been rising and eroding the shore, chewed into the home’s foundation and it crumbled into the sea. The United Nations named Saint Louis as the area most at-risk from climate change in Africa. Guet Ndar, where this family called home, is highly populated fishing community. The fishermen have noticed huge changes. They say the ocean used to be a long distance across the beach during low tides; now it laps at their homes. And, they’ve seen an increase in strange winds and storms, making their work at sea more dangerous and volatile. Many people have lost their homes. Date taken: 19/03/2015
Shortlisted
2019 Climate Visuals Photography Award
Water World Child
Jashim Salem
In the past few years, tidal surge – water levels rising significantly above the tide levels that astronomy predicts – has begun to affect the Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong as much as twice a day, resulting in frequent flooding of residential and business areas. If things continue to worsen, most areas of Chittagong could become completely submerged in the near future. Here we see Saraf, eight, sitting on a submerged car at their home flooded by the tidal surge. Date taken: 29/08/2015
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13/11/2019

Scientists looked at sea levels 125,000 years in the past. The results are terrifying

The Conversation -  |  | 

A polar bear wandering on melting pack ice in Canada, north of the Arctic Circle, during the summer 2017. Scientists say the last interglacial offers lessons for future sea level rise. Florian Ledoux/The Nature Conservancy
Sea levels rose 10 metres above present levels during Earth’s last warm period 125,000 years ago, according to new research that offers a glimpse of what may happen under our current climate change trajectory.
Our paper, published today in Nature Communications, shows that melting ice from Antarctica was the main driver of sea level rise in the last interglacial period, which lasted about 10,000 years.
Rising sea levels are one of the biggest challenges to humanity posed by climate change, and sound predictions are crucial if we are to adapt.
This research shows that Antarctica, long thought to be the “sleeping giant” of sea level rise, is actually a key player. Its ice sheets can change quickly, and in ways that could have huge implications for coastal communities and infrastructure in future.
Aerial footage showing devastation caused by severe storms at Collaroy on Sydney’s northern beaches in June 2016. UNSW Water Research Laboratory
A warning from the past
Earth’s cycles consist of both cold glacial periods - or ice ages - when large parts of the world are covered in large ice sheets, and warmer interglacial periods when the ice thaws and sea levels rise.
The Earth is presently in an interglacial period which began about 10,000 years ago. But greenhouse gas emissions over the past 200 years have caused climate changes that are faster and more extreme than experienced during the last interglacial. This means past rates of sea level rise provide only low-end predictions of what might happen in future.
We examined data from the last interglacial, which occurred 125,000 to 118,000 years ago. Temperatures were up to 1℃ higher than today - similar to those projected for the near future
Our research reveals that ice melt in the last interglacial period caused global seas to rise about 10 metres above the present level. The ice melted first in Antarctica, then a few thousand years later in Greenland.
Sea levels rose at up to 3 metres per century, far exceeding the roughly 0.3-metre rise observed over the past 150 years.
The early ice loss in Antarctica occurred when the Southern Ocean warmed at the start of the interglacial. This meltwater changed the way Earth’s oceans circulated, which caused warming in the northern polar region and triggered ice melt in Greenland.
Dogs hauling a sled through meltwater on coastal sea ice during an expedition in northwest Greenland,June 2019. STEFFEN M. OLSEN/DANISH METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Understanding the data
Global average sea level is currently estimated to be rising at more than 3 millimetres a year. This rate is projected to increase and total sea-level rise by 2100 (relative to 2000) is projected to reach 70-100 centimetres, depending on which greenhouse gas emissions pathway we follow.
Such projections usually rely on records gathered this century from tide gauges, and since the 1990s from satellite data.
Most of these projections do not account for a key natural process - ice-cliff instability - which is not observed in the short instrumental record. This is why geological observations are vital.
When ice reaches the ocean, it becomes a floating ice-shelf which ends in an ice-cliff. When these cliffs get very large, they become unstable and can rapidly collapse.
This collapse increases the discharge of land ice into the ocean. The end result is global sea-level rise. A few models have attempted to include ice-cliff instability, but the results are contentious. Outputs from these models do, however, predict rates of sea-level rise that are intriguingly similar to our newly observed last interglacial data.
Antactica was long thought to be the sleeping giant of sea level rise, but is now considered a key driver. Australian Antarctic Division
Our work examines records of total sea-level change, which by definition includes all relevant natural processes.
We examined chemical changes in fossil plankton shells in marine sediments from the Red Sea, which reliably relate to changes in sea level. Together with evidence of meltwater input around Antarctica and Greenland, this record reveals how rapidly sea level rose, and distinguishes between different ice sheet contributions.

Looking to the future
What is striking about the last interglacial record is how high and quickly sea level rose above present levels. Temperatures during the last interglacial were similar to those projected for the near future, which means melting polar ice sheets will likely affect future sea levels far more dramatically than anticipated to date.
The last interglacial is not a perfect scenario for the future. Incoming solar radiation was higher than today because of differences in Earth’s position relative to the Sun. Carbon dioxide levels were only 280 parts per million, compared with more than 410 parts per million today.
Crucially, warming between the two poles in the last interglacial did not happen simultaneously. But under today’s greenhouse-gas-driven climate change, warming and ice loss are happening in both regions at the same time. This means that if climate change continues unabated, Earth’s past dramatic sea level rise could be a small taste of what’s to come.

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