Climate change Down-Under

Jetstream madness in the Southern Hemisphere

This follows a heat ave on Sunday, during the G20

Brisbane: Severe storms and flash flooding cause chaos

Brisbame Times,

20 November, 2014

Southeast Queensland could be hit with more storms on Thursday, as the region mops up from a dramatic storm on Wednesday which caused flash flooding, traffic chaos and left thousands without power.

The Bureau of Meteorology said there was a chance of a thunderstorm during the morning and afternoon in Brisbane.

However there is only a 40 per cent chance of rain, and the potential rainfall would be less than 4mm.

Flooding at Constance Street, Fortitude Valley. Photo: Akash Seth

Forecaster Adam Woods said conditions should clear in the Brisbane area by 4pm.

"There may be some severe storms about but the chance is less than yesterday," he said on Thursday morning.

Queensland Rail said all services had returned to normal, after the network was damaged by lightning strikes, fallen trees and a roof which blew onto the tracks at Nundah.

Motorists negotiate flash flooding at Fortitude Valley. Photo: Akash Seth

"A large scale task was undertaken last night to restore power to the network for this morning's peak," Queensland Rail said in a statement.

"We understand that our customers were heavily impacted last night due to these extreme weather events. We thank our customers for their patience and understanding, as we worked as quickly and safely as possible to transport them home."

It been another muggy morning, with the relative humidity hitting 95 per cent in Brisbane at 5am. Conditions were similar on the Gold Coast and at Maroochydore.

Cars were badly affected by flash flooding. Photo: Fairfax Radio 4BC

It may still be spring, but the summer storm season arrived with a vengeance on Wednesday afternoon.

Social media, as has become a tradition during storms, was abuzz with photographs of submerged cars at Bowen Hills, flooded roads across the city and lightning strikes – including an exploding tree, struck by lightning outside the Tip Top bakery at Slacks Creek.

The storm warnings started shortly after 2pm, with an expected 30 millimetres predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology.

In the end, that was understated, with 55.8 millimetres falling in Brisbane and a massive 87.6 millimetres at Archerfield.

Ninety millimetres was recorded in just 60 minutes at Geebung, while Inala hit triple figures – 100 millimetres in an our.

A 106 km/h wind gust was recorded at Redcliffe at 5.15pm.

Swift water rescuers were called in at Salisbury when two cars floated down a street, while in Rocklea three vehicles were stuck in floodwater in an underpass.

Crews were also required in Bowen Hills and Acacia Ridge, also due to flooding.

A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokeswoman said the cars tended to by the crews had no people inside them, so no actual rescues were performed.

But she said SES crews had been kept busy, with more than 200 call-outs in the state's south-east.

Of those, the QFES spokeswoman said 91 were from within the Brisbane City Council local government area.

The south-western suburbs of Redbank Plains, Forest Lake, Inala and Springfield Lakes were hit particularly hard, she said, however there were no reports of major damage.

Energex reported almost 15,000 customers were without power shortly before 6pm.

Streets across the city were flooded, while Toombul Shopping Centre and Post Office Square in the CBD became waterlogged at the height of the storm.

The rain caused flash flooding on roads across the city, including in the CBD, Fortitude Valley, Oxley, Inala, Bowen Hills, Kedron and Archerfield.

By sundown, blue skies had returned to Brisbane, but commuters in the sodden city were facing long delays home.

Translink reported buses from the CBD to the suburbs had delays of 30 minutes in all directions, while trains had delays of up to 90 minutes because of flooding on the tracks

Australian agriculture needs 

to adapt, not simply shift, to 

meet climate change

By Jane Wardell

Reuters,

15 November, 2014

But sooner or later, Australia is going to run out of places to shift agricultural production to avoid the harsh effects of climate change.

Australia's flagship scientific body told the Reuters Global Climate Change Summit on Wednesday that it is therefore critical for companies to consider both mitigation and adaption measures now.

"We have to act very soon on mitigation, reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and adaptation," the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's (CSIRO) Science Director for Climate Adaption Mark Stafford Smith said in an interview in Sydney.

Climate change is a major threat to food security in a country that has talked about becoming a "food bowl" for Asia. It also complicates a government plan to increase agricultural production to meet an expected doubling in global food demand by 2050.

As the only developed nation dominated by an arid climate, Stafford Smith said, Australiafaces more variability in rainfall, prolonged droughts and a greater incidence of extreme weather events.

The government-funded CSIRO is working with a range of industries and companies on a number of adaptation strategies.

Treasury Wine Estates Ltd and other wine companies are testing underground irrigation systems, developed with CSIRO, in their vineyards in response to increased levels of evaporation.

The agency is also working with cereal farmers to experiment with new grain varieties better able to cope with higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The average global temperature has warmed by more than 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past century, and the present warming rate is 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Australia is heating up even faster - a joint Bureau of Meteorology-CSIRO State of the Climate 2014 report found current temperatures are, on average, almost one degree Celsius warmer than they were in 1910. Most of this increase has occurred since the 1950s, suggesting an accelerated warming trend.

SHIFTING PRODUCTION

The need to adapt is reflected in the varying success Australian industries have had in making a straightforward geographical shift.

Wine companies are benefiting from the purchase of vineyards in the tiny island-state of Tasmania. Prompted by ever hotter and drier conditions to find alternatives to the country's traditional wine growing regions on the mainland, they are now growing different varieties in the cooler southern climate.

Tuna fisheries in the Southern Ocean have shifted further east as sea temperatures rise, initially moving them closer to ports and other infrastructure. But if they continue to chase warmer waters east, they will move further away again.

A lack of infrastructure was the downfall of a move by peanut growers from central Queensland to the tip of the Northern Territory. Growers moved north to take advantage of the mix of sun and higher rainfall, but high transport costs and mould hampered their efforts.

The Peanut Company of Australia abandoned its plans for large-scale production in the far north in 2012, selling its property after just five years on the land to a sandalwood producer.

The peanut industry is looking at trying again, but this time it is setting the stage with a trial crop to try and find a new variety of peanut for the northern climate.

Stafford Smith said it is that kind of innovation rather than simply shifting geographies that Australia needs to pursue - and could potentially export to others, given the country is at the forefront of responding to climate change.

"Australia has a comparative advantage in dry-land agriculture and on the natural resources side," he said.

Australia stands firm against 

G20 pack on climate change

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday warned that next year's landmark climate change summit in Paris will fail if world leaders decide to put cutting carbon emissions ahead of economic growth.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott waits for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama for their meeting at the G20 in Brisbane November 16, 2014. Reuters/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Reuters,

15 November, 2014

Just days after host Australia was embarrassed into addressing climate change at the Group of 20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane, Abbott defiantly held his country's line - the polar opposite of most other G20 nations.

"It's vital that the Paris conference be a success... and for it to be a success, we can't pursue environmental improvements at the expense of economic progress," Abbott said. "We can't reduce emissions in ways which cost jobs because it will fail if that's what we end up trying to do."

Abbott made the remarks at a joint press conference in Canberra with visiting French President Francois Hollande, who said he hoped a new deal on carbon emissions would be legally binding and linked to a new United Nations fund to help poor nations cope with global warming.

"If the poorest, most vulnerable countries can't be accompanied in their transition to sustainable development, then there will be no binding agreement," Hollande said earlier this week in New Caledonia, where he met top government officials from Kiribati, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Niue, Tuvalu and French Polynesia.

The Green Climate Fund now stands at $7.5 billion following pledges by the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Mexicoand South Korea. That is within sight of a $10 billion goal, brightening prospects for a U.N. climate pact next year.

Asked if Australia would contribute to the fund, Abbott said Australia, one of the world's biggest carbon emitters per capita, had already committed A$2.55 billion ($2.21 billion) to a domestic initiative to reduce the country's emissions by 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.

"What we are doing is quite comparable with what other countries are doing and we do deliver on our reductions targets unlike some others," Abbott said.

Still, U.S. President Barack Obama used a high-profile speech in Brisbane to warn Australia that its own Great Barrier Reef was in danger, a message that reportedly angered G20 organizers.

Obama was at the forefront of a successful push by the majority of G20 nations to override Australia's attempts to keep climate change off the formal agenda of the summit.

The final communique called for strong and effective action to address climate change with the aim of adopting a protocol, with legal force, in Paris.