Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks in: Are the Southwest and California Next?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress

Australia has been suffering its worst heatwave on record, the first time temperatures exceeded 110 F for 3 days running. It's been so hot that on Thursday, the low at Melbourne airport was 87 F.

Australia is the canary in the coal mine for climate-driven desertification. The astonishing decade-long drought in southern Australia was declared 'worst on record' last year. My headline quote is from the UK's Independent story, which notes:

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat.

Australia is but the first and most seriously impacted of the arid sub-tropical (and near-sub-tropical) climates that are facing horrific desertification from climate change. For instance, Lester Snow, Director of California's Department of Water Resources said Friday

We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history

.

Two years ago, Science (subs. req'd) published research that "predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest" -- levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California. The UK's Hadley Center warned in November 2006 that their research predicted multiple permanent Dust Bowls around the planet on our current emissions path:

Extreme drought is likely to increase from under 3% of the globe today to 30%

by 2100 -- areas affected by severe drought could see a five-fold increase from 8% to 40%.

Extreme drought means desertification, especially if it lasts for hundreds of years, as the recent NOAA-led study found (see NOAA stunner: Climate change "largely irreversible for 1000 years," with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe). The regions that NOAA identifies as facing permanent Dust Bowls:

• U.S. Southwest
• Southeast Asia
• Eastern South America
• Southern Europe
• Southern Africa
• Northern Africa
• Western Australia

Again, since Western Australia is the most sensitive, since Australia is already the driest of the habitable continents, it's no surprise that Australia is the first to see such climate change driven decadal drought:

Most of the south of the country is gripped by unprecedented 12-year drought.

The Australian Alps have had their driest three years ever, and the water from the vast Murray-Darling river system now fails to reach the sea 40 per cent of the time. Harvests have fallen sharply.

It will get worse as global warming increases

. Even modest temperature rises, now seen as unavoidable, are expected to increase drought by 70 per cent in New South Wales, cut Melbourne's water supplies by more than a third, and dry up the Murray-Darling system by another 25 per cent.

When you throw a brutal heat wave on top of the desertification, then all hell breaks loose:

Ministers are blaming the heat -- which follows a record drought -- on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also

be the first to implode under the impact of climate change

.

At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.

More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer.

"

All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what scientists told us would happen," said climate change minister Penny Wong.

As an aside, I wonder when the United States will get a Department of Climate Change. Probably not for a decade or more, until we are hit by an extended Australian-scale drought somewhere along with one or more of the other near-term climate Pearl Harbors?

AFP's story's calls this "once-in-a-century heatwave that has claimed dozens of lives and sparked wildfires." But, in fact, Professor David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, said last week: "The heat is unusual, but it will become much more like the normal experience in 10 to 20 years."

One final (very) small point. We already saw Tiger Woods win the "Hottest Major of All Time" and the parched "brown British Open."

But this Australian open is going to go down as the hottest tennis major of all time (so far):

Earlier in the week, as the historic heat took grip, men's champion Novak Djokovic sensationally pulled out of his Australian Open quarter final with heat-related problems, the first defending champion to withdraw in the Open era.

Three-time champion Serena Williams, who will take on Russia's Dinara Safina in Saturday's women's final, described playing as an "out-of-body" experience before the roof of the Rod Laver Arena was closed and a row over the Australian Open heat policy ensued.

In the future, more and more major sporting events will have to be moved away from the summer and perhaps, like the Super Bowl, actually be held in the winter (if not indoors where possible).

Of course, if we really turn one third of the planet into permanent desert by century's end -- and raise global temperatures an average of 10°F, with sea levels 5 feet higher and rising 10 inches a decade, I wonder just how much interest will remain in such "nonessential" activities like professional sports.

http://www.alternet.org/water/124689/austr...alifornia_next/

[Cherel & Bob 0]

Since much of the United States is freezing tonight and we are once again having record levels of snow here in the NorthEast I can only hope that global warming will hurry up and get here. Global cooling in the 70's, Global warming in the 90's , now called climate change, always been called weather.... Humans have no real effect on the climate here on earth. Humans were not around during the ice age to cause those glaciers to retreat. Did you know that you can see the effects of the glaciers slow movement south and then back north again in exposed pieces of bedrock in Central Park in NY?

While on the subject.. what is the proper temperature balance for the earth? Should every part of the earth experience all 4 seasons as we do here in the NorthEast? Should more of the earth be covered in water as it was when it first started to form life milliions of years ago? Hell, maybe the proper temp should be cold enough that much of the earth is covered in ice again?

Freezing my a$$ off her in NH

Bob

[Jasman0717 9]

Its been toasty here in Santa Ana the last few weeks

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Since much of the United States is freezing tonight and we are once again having record levels of snow here in the NorthEast I can only hope that global warming will hurry up and get here. Global cooling in the 70's, Global warming in the 90's , now called climate change, always been called weather.... Humans have no real effect on the climate here on earth. Humans were not around during the ice age to cause those glaciers to retreat. Did you know that you can see the effects of the glaciers slow movement south and then back north again in exposed pieces of bedrock in Central Park in NY?

While on the subject.. what is the proper temperature balance for the earth? Should every part of the earth experience all 4 seasons as we do here in the NorthEast? Should more of the earth be covered in water as it was when it first started to form life milliions of years ago? Hell, maybe the proper temp should be cold enough that much of the earth is covered in ice again?

Freezing my a$ off her in NH

Bob

Bob,

I said the same thing to my neurosurgeon when he told me I had a brain tumor the size of a baseball. I sez, "No way, doc! I don't feel nuttin!" I showed him.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Since much of the United States is freezing tonight and we are once again having record levels of snow here in the NorthEast I can only hope that global warming will hurry up and get here. Global cooling in the 70's, Global warming in the 90's , now called climate change, always been called weather.... Humans have no real effect on the climate here on earth. Humans were not around during the ice age to cause those glaciers to retreat. Did you know that you can see the effects of the glaciers slow movement south and then back north again in exposed pieces of bedrock in Central Park in NY?

While on the subject.. what is the proper temperature balance for the earth? Should every part of the earth experience all 4 seasons as we do here in the NorthEast? Should more of the earth be covered in water as it was when it first started to form life milliions of years ago? Hell, maybe the proper temp should be cold enough that much of the earth is covered in ice again?

Freezing my a$$ off her in NH

Bob

Word. The truth has nothing to do with it. Only how you feel about it.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Since much of the United States is freezing tonight and we are once again having record levels of snow here in the NorthEast I can only hope that global warming will hurry up and get here. Global cooling in the 70's, Global warming in the 90's , now called climate change, always been called weather.... Humans have no real effect on the climate here on earth. Humans were not around during the ice age to cause those glaciers to retreat. Did you know that you can see the effects of the glaciers slow movement south and then back north again in exposed pieces of bedrock in Central Park in NY?

While on the subject.. what is the proper temperature balance for the earth? Should every part of the earth experience all 4 seasons as we do here in the NorthEast? Should more of the earth be covered in water as it was when it first started to form life milliions of years ago? Hell, maybe the proper temp should be cold enough that much of the earth is covered in ice again?

Freezing my a$ off her in NH

Bob

Word. The truth has nothing to do with it. Only how you feel about it.

LOL

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Australia? Who?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Australia? Who?

It's like the U.S. only 10 times better.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Australia? Who?

It's like the U.S. only 10 times better.

Are you sure? I hear there's a Lebanese family in Sydney

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Australia? Who?

It's like the U.S. only 10 times better.

Are you sure? I hear there's a Lebanese family in Sydney

...as sure as Boo-yah's an engineer.

[HAL 9000 96]

Since much of the United States is freezing tonight and we are once again having record levels of snow here in the NorthEast I can only hope that global warming will hurry up and get here. Global cooling in the 70's, Global warming in the 90's , now called climate change, always been called weather.... Humans have no real effect on the climate here on earth. Humans were not around during the ice age to cause those glaciers to retreat. Did you know that you can see the effects of the glaciers slow movement south and then back north again in exposed pieces of bedrock in Central Park in NY?

While on the subject.. what is the proper temperature balance for the earth? Should every part of the earth experience all 4 seasons as we do here in the NorthEast? Should more of the earth be covered in water as it was when it first started to form life milliions of years ago? Hell, maybe the proper temp should be cold enough that much of the earth is covered in ice again?

Freezing my a$ off her in NH

Bob

Search Google for the difference between climate and weather.

Expecting a high of 52 in Chicago for Saturday in February.

[Reba 2]

I have a friend down in the South of Australia and he says its been absolutely brutal there the past couple of weeks. Over 40C pretty much every day. That's nasty.

I have another friend who lives up in the far end of Nunavut. He says its been close to -50C for the last while. But the sun is coming up this week, so it'll be warm again by July or so.

[NickD 203]

Weather is near perfect in Venezuela, let's go down and pound the ####### out of Chavez and take that country over. All the hurricanes go north to Florida-Texas, no need for either heating nor air conditioning and the temperature extremes are from 65-85* F year round, but much nicer in the mountains.

We were forecasted temperatures in the high 20's this week, but somehow an arctic blast came down from the north pole with sub zero temperatures and windchill factors of -30*F.

We have about one hundred wind turbines in the state operated by the same company that sells natural gas. But I actually think they are fans blowing cold air from the north so they can sell more gas. And as the demand increases, so does the price, price also increases in the summer months, because they claim the demand is low.

It's the winds that affect our weather, typical for us to see 100*F+ temperatures in August, but that hasn't happened for the last five years, only barely hit 90*F once last year and only for a couple of hours, has been cool.

So exactly what is the problem? But a long standing statement has been, if you don't like the weather here, just wait a couple of minutes, it will change.

Some scientists feel solar flares are the problem, one small flare can produce more energy than a million of our most powerful nuclear weapons. But do you think if we set off all the nuclear weapons in this world, if that would have any effect on climate change? What about WW II? That was certainly man made.

[HC09 0]

Australia? Who?

It's like the U.S. only 10 times better.

Are you sure? I hear there's a Lebanese family in Sydney

What difference does that make???

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Australia? Who?

It's like the U.S. only 10 times better.

Are you sure? I hear there's a Lebanese family in Sydney

What difference does that make???

Are you lesbian?