Australia faces ongoing Black Summer-level bushfire catastrophes, the decimation of coastal homes, and a dead Great Barrier Reef if the world becomes 1.5C hotter and stays there. And the first time we’ve ever surpassed this tipping point is likely to take place in the next four years.
A damning report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has forecast a 66% chance of the world recording an average temperature increase of 1.5C hotter than in pre-industrial years, a probability WMO said has surged from 10% in 2021 and nearly zero in 2015.
A potent combination of El Niño — La Niña’s hotter, dryer brother — and climate change is to blame, according to the latest global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, which also warned there is a 98% likelihood of at least one year between now and 2027 being the hottest on record.
Dr Kimberley Reid is an atmospheric scientist from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at Monash University. She told Crikey exceeding 1.5C on an ongoing basis is something climate scientists agree will occur as soon as the 2030s without drastic human intervention.
If we do not act fast, Reid told Crikey, Australia can expect several catastrophes of biblical proportion — and they may all happen at once.
Homes on the coast could fall into the sea
A 2022 study found that global temperatures 1C above pre-industrial levels — a point the world has already passed — would be enough to gradually collapse the West Antarctic ice sheet, something that would eventually cause the sea level to rise by four metres.
But some of the country’s most expensive beachside homes are already feeling the effects of coastal erosion, Reid said, where the land beneath a property is lashed by king tides during east coast lows that can cause partial or entire collapse.
“There are quite a few places, not just coasts, as we saw last year with all the flooding, where it’s very risky to be building houses because of the extreme weather events,” Reid said.
Adelaide’s West Beach, Glenelg, Henley and Brighton, as well as parts of the Gold Coast and Sydney’s northern beaches, are already working to secure homes at risk — but about 87% of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the nearest shoreline and could be displaced by a rising sea level.
Reid said it’s not just rising sea temperatures that put coasts at risk — ocean storms and tropical cyclones from warming weather will grow “very intense, and such intense storms can cause a lot of coastal erosion in a very short period of time”.
Cyclones typically occur in the NT and far north Queensland, Reid explained, because you need ocean temperatures above 26C for them to form. “But as temperatures warm, that magical number would shift further south,” she said, bringing cyclones to Brisbane and as far as NSW.
Black Summer bushfires could happen again. And again
The 2019-20 bushfire season scorched more than 24 million hectares of land, killed 33 people, and led to the deaths of 450 from smoke inhalation, increasing the stratospheric temperature above Australia by 3C, one study suggested.
A repeat of Black Summer is Reid’s “biggest concern”, and the chances rise significantly in a year when the global temperature surpasses 1.5C transpires. It’s a tipping point, she said, because it’s hard to come back from.
“As these extreme events occur more often, the recovery time decreases. And there’s a point where you just can’t recover properly, because it’s too many extreme events.”
Reid said three back-to-back La Niñas, where the temperatures have been cooler and average rainfall has been higher, have seen vegetation growth in eastern Australia grow abundantly.
“If we do get such a hot global year of 1.5C, which brings a hot, dry period over Australia, that vegetation will dry out and become kindling for bushfires. We may see another Black Summer bushfire season.”
The Great Barrier Reef would die
The natural wonder, which is about the size of Germany, has been hit with five mass-bleaching events in recent history (1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020) because of rising ocean temperatures driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
The reef has actually benefited from a relatively mild La Niña summer, according to the Reef Snapshot: Summer 2022-23, a joint report by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and CSIRO.
It found while sea temperatures in spring were the hottest on record, summer sea temperatures were slightly above average at most, leading to some bleaching in the northern, central and southern regions. But, crucially, “no mass coral bleaching”, it said.
Coral can recover from mild bleaching, but if the temperature is too hot for too long, it dies.
Australia would enter a health crisis
The human cost of such calamities would be wide-ranging, said Dr Annabelle Workman, a climate scientist at the Melbourne Climate Futures, Melbourne Law School and Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
“These types of events, and climate change more broadly, can impact human health in different ways, including physically — through illnesses like heat stress and dehydration,” Workman told Crikey.
“But also mentally — including eco-anxiety, pre-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress. Further, there are likely to be impacts on outdoor workers in some parts of Australia in a warmer world.”
Not only that, Reid said, but longer, meaner droughts place livestock and crops at risk, which already grow on the driest continent on earth.
Dairy cows are one of the most susceptible livestock species to heat stress, affected by increased temperatures as low as 23C, while one of Australia’s most abundant crops — golden wheat, the key ingredient in bread — would become scarce.
Meanwhile, in an alternative universe (SA), there are government ministers grovelling at the feet of the fossil fuel behemoths. We have wall-to-wall Labor governments approving new and expanding coal and gas projects, while claiming to be doing wonders to solve climate warming. As always, $$ trumps good.
Indeed. And when anyone challenges what these Labor ministers are doing they all trot out those moth-eaten clichés about how they have struck the right balance between various interests and so on. Like there is a reasonable balance between catastrophic irreversible climate change on the one hand and temporarily propping up the obscene profits of a few multi-national corporations on the other. In a perverse way I almost admire South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis for his unambiguous grovelling to the oil & gas industry. At least he has left everyone in no doubt about who is running the country and giving him his orders. Such openness and honesty in this context is, up to a point, commendable.
That would be the loss of one in ten of those homes, but the true threat is far worse than decimation. The reality is that almost everywhere near the coast is under threat, directly or indirectly, of inundation, devastation and destruction before the seas stop rising and the storms stop getting more powerful. Decimation is a wildly optimistic forecast.
Before the seas stop rising? Good luck with that, as there is enough ice to raise sea levels by 70 metres when it melts. All the land potentially covered is, in fact, old sea bed. Big ice is not normal in our planets long history. Around 10,000 years ago (not very long) the sea rose 120 metres. The talk of the West Antarctic ice shelf collapsing but taking thousands of years to do it is complete head-in-the-sand ostrich talk. The bulk of the ice is in East Antarctica, considered by science to be safe from melting. That talk will change when it starts to rain there as a regular thing. Then watch out. But hey turn up the gas and be happy, and to hell with tomorrow, Albo. The rules we have invented for nature may not always suit nature.
Yet we have the means and ability to be living in a paradise. If not now, when?
But still the day will come when the seas do stop rising. Luck has nothing to do with it, it’s an inevitable consequence of a finite amount of water on a finite planet.
I got here a bit late, 09Jun23, this stuff about melting ice, appears to be on the assumption that the Timeline is linear. Evidence coming to light over the last less than a decade indicates that its a looooong way from being linear.
They used to think that the great Ice coverage of North America took thousands of years to melt, Now the thinking is swining around to hundreds of years to decades.
Most people these days are unaware of the old literal meaning of “decimation”, which dates from the Latin verb “decimare” in the times of the Roman empire. It has long since lost its literal meaning in English, and the mainstream meaning of the word in modern English is something akin to what you have described as “the reality”. And I agree, without doubt you are right. Word usage eventually changes word meaning. That’s how language works, for better or worse.
Meanwhile, the Federal government keeps shovelling billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, which is the major driver of climate change.
I wonder how many people who watched, enjoyed and loved “Lord of the Rings” understood what Tolkien was telling us. The evil of the orcs cutting down trees, burning fuels and building towers for their evil practises, all was the coming of the industrial age, and look how right his foresight was. Or did you all sed it as a great fantasy tale with no understanding of the warning he was giving humankind. Of course being ever a romantic, Tolkien gave us a good over evil ending.
Will, in this case and where we now are, we actually be given a happy ending? Not while successive governments continue to use taxpayers money to subsidise fossil fuel companies instead of taxibg them so hard they are forced to either change to being renewables companies or just stop digging up what should be left in the ground. I’m surprised that lije UK and The US we haven’t been dealt sinkholes in our cities and towns that are built over old mining sites, but that’s only because, so far, companies have not been allowed to dig too close to human habitation – that we know about, though some are too close to land where they sink their wells, who knows which direction these digs go out of our sight?
I repeat: tax them out of business or, force them to make the change to renewables. Whichever they choose, make them pay not us.
What I find most annoying is when news of o/seas climate disasters are mentioned, its the death count first then some photos of the disaster. Never any analysis of costs to repair infrastructure which is usually vital for that community to function.
How much have the recent floods in various parts of Australia cost to rebuild and replace equipment? Plus roads? Where is the money going to come from to maintain some semblance of a functioning society/region?
I watch o/seas news – severe floods in Croatia and nearby countries, severe water shortage in Iraq (no welfare state there – no food to grow – you die.)
How is Bangladesh/Myanmar going? Africa – too many political problems to solve.
Basically the whole world needs to produce less of the dross we consume. Less luxurious exclusive travel,
Here’s a radical, even revolutionary idea – get rid of built in obsolescence – for all electrical products! No new models of products every couple of years! Think of the savings in energy world wide (as well as your pocket).
Imagine if we got rid of advertising? Actually, there would be riots – from ad agencies and human rights lawyers babbling about democracy, freedom of choice, monopolies, etc. It could work if the whole world agreed, but then again, there would be chaos as which corporation or small business will close first to save the planet? Answer – none.
I’m 75,so won’t see the results of future climatic catastrophes and resulting deaths. Very glad of that, although I weep for the flora and fauna of the world.
“I weep for the flora and fauna of the world.” That’s what saddens me most.