Author Archives: ovehblog

APEC Summary

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After many years of denying that climate change was an issue or even existed, it is refreshing to see Howard and Bush finally coming to the table to discuss what will be the defining issue of this century. At last, they seem to get what people have been telling them for over a decade. Overall, however, the APEC Declaration on Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development is weak and elusive of the major issues and responses that are needed.

For example, much of the text is dominated by statements that constrain the steps that we might take to combat climate change to those which do not affect trade or economic prosperity in the Asia Pacific region. Given the two often take opposing directions, this is lame. Not to say we want policies that crash our economies, but surely environmental issues as important as climate change should not always take the back seat to economics? This of course has been the career-long position of our climate-skeptic-now-supposedly-with-it Prime Minister. Of course, he is cozily embedded in the APEC love-in with his ‘aspirational’ and like-minded buddy, George Bush. Unfortunately, given the serious issues of climate change (as outlined in the recent IPCC 2007 report), rating economics over the environment trades the future for short-term gains today. This may be politically expedient for our poll-driven Prime Minister, but is not good long-term economic management.

The Australian business community understands it far more than leaders like John Howard or Peter Costello. A recent poll indicates that climate change is at the top of the list of business risks – primarily because it stands to radically amplify the uncertainty of the future and consequently escalate business risk.  Surely, APEC should have sort to balance the priorities of economics and the environment.

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APEC Constitution round-up

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It’s been pretty hard to avoid the extensive media coverage of the APEC meeting in Sydney over the last week, particularly the outcome of the “Sydney Declaration on Climate Change and Energy” (read more here)

Some interesting asides for the regions coral reefs:

“We (the ministers) look forward to future work that will help to conserve marine and coastal resources, including the safeguarding of coral reefs” (link)

President G.W. Bush commits to supporting Indonesia’s reforestation program with $20 million USD :

The Indonesian leader thanked the US administration for giving assistance and attention to Indonesia`s efforts to protect the environment, especially those to address climate change and coral reef destruction” (link)

… and an excerpt from the declaration itself:

Improved dialogue and policy and technical co-operation is valuable in underpinning our efforts. We … welcome the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security which is aimed at enhancing the conservation of marine biological resources (link)

More on this from me in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the more cynical might enjoy the following blogged over at ZDnet:

They talked global warming down in Australia. All those leaders from the U.S., China, Japan, Russia, host-nation Australia, Indonesia and fifteen other nations agreed that they aspire to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Boy, that’s reassuring. These leaders didn’t do anything radical, like promise to do anything. Good intentions and high aspirations, that’s the ticket.

Warmer seas will stress coral

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06-Sep-2007

By Michele Gierck

While the need to protect vulnerable people around the globe is widely recognised, people are less aware of the need to protect the vulnerable areas of the earth itself, including its rivers and oceans.

Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge confronting the international community. The study of oceans and reefs offers us insight into the consequences of not taking immediate action to combat this challenge.

On a recent trip to Heron Island, I visited the Heron Island Research Station (HIRS) and met with Dr Selina Ward, a scientist at the Centre for Marine Studies (CMS) at the University of Queensland, which operates the station.

Research from the CMS and the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) reveals that there are two main threats facing reefs around the globe: rising sea temperatures, which leads to coral bleaching, and increasing ocean acidification.

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The science behind Symbiodinium

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Weird ‘Engine Of The Reef’ Revealed

Science Daily A team of coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious ‘engine’ that drives Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world over.

The science has critical importance in understanding why coral reefs bleach and die, how they respond to climate change – and how that might affect humanity, they say.

Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University and the University of Queensland have compiled the world’s first detailed gene expression library for Symbiodinium, the microscopic algae that feed the corals – and so provide the primary energy source for the entire Reef.

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Coral reef diversity uncovered

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An interesting article in The Age newspaper this morning reports a collaboration between BHP Billiton, the worlds largest mining company, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The collaboration aims to document the diversity in coral reefs – no small effort considering it is estimated that the number of species that inhabit reefs is greater than one million! This is set to be an exciting project, especially as it is documenting both the Great Barrier Reef (Heron & Lizard Islands) and Ningaloo Reef. Read more over at Creefs, and The Age article below.

BHP digs deep for reefs plan

September 3, 2007

CORAL reefs are probably the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. But just how diverse is not known, according to Ian Poiner, chief executive of tropical marine research agency, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

Estimates of the number of species that make coral reefs their home ranges between one and 9 million.

“They are relatively small areas — less than 2 per cent of the ocean area — but they are incredibly important, both from an environmental, social and economic perspective,” said Dr Poiner.

The knowledge gap is now being redressed in CReefs, the coral reef component of the Census of Marine Life, a global research effort involving 80 nations in a 10-year study into the diversity and distribution of marine life in oceans.

Last week resources giant BHP Billiton announced $3.4 million in financial support for the Australian leg of the CReefs program. It is BHP’s biggest ever backing of an environmental research project.

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On the Decline of Coral Reef Ecosystems (II): John Bruno Responds

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Coral White Syndrome

As the lead author of the recent articles on coral disease outbreaks on the GBR and Indo-Pacific reef decline, Dr John Bruno raises some valid points regarding the recent critique on the decline of GBR corals by Peter Ridd:

Ove, thanks for posting Peter Ridd’s critique of Pandolfi et al. 2003. I’d be interested in hearing from Peter about whether he had a hard time getting this published and what type of reaction he got from reviewers at journals like Science or Coral Reefs. Although I agreed with some of his specific criticisms of the methodology used by Pandolfi et al., Peter’s overall arguments about the status of the GBR are demonstrably incorrect. Below I briefly comment on some his main problems (in caps) and points (in quotes) and correct some of his major errors about the state of reef-building corals on the GBR. PROBLEM 1: EFFECT OF WEIGHTING OF THE GUILDS
“The problem with equal weighting of the guilds is that the fundamental importance of corals to coral reef ecosystems is not adequately recognized.”I totally agree. This seems like a major flaw. But I imagine that the authors would respond that their intent was to quantify the status of entire reef ecosystems, including food web structure and trophic dynamics. I certainly agree that a reef without large vertebrates is aesthetically and ecologically impoverished. But it is hard to ignore the fact that without corals you have no ecosystem but without top predators you just have an altered and possibly “degraded” ecosystem.As Peter (sorry for the informality, but the Dr. Ridd said, Dr. Bruno replied thing feels a bit stuffy to me in a blog discussion) succinctly states, “coral reefs cannot exist without reef-building corals.” A seemingly obvious point that is sometimes lost.“Because the guilds and species that are subject to human exploitation (e.g. large herbivores) are often in worse state than corals”
As I discuss below, this is not the case due to the indirect and often long distance effects of humans on corals.

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Glaciers dominate eustatic sea-level rise in the 21st Century

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Glacier

Sheet ice dynamics and glacial meltwater have been somewhat of a contentious issue in the past (link, read more). Mark Meier and colleagues from the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado have made the headlines in the journal Science magazine recently:

Ice loss to the sea currently accounts for virtually all of the sea-level rise that is not attributable to ocean warming, and about 60% of the ice loss is from glaciers and ice caps rather than from the two ice sheets. The contribution of these smaller glaciers has accelerated over the past decade, in part due to marked thinning and retreat of marine-terminating glaciers associated with a dynamic instability that is generally not considered in mass-balance and climate modeling. This acceleration of glacier melt may cause 0.1 to 0.25 meter of additional sea-level rise by 2100. (link to full article)

As blogged on their website:

The team summarized satellite, aircraft and ground-based data from glaciers, ice caps, the Greenland ice sheet, the West Antarctic ice sheet and the East Antarctic ice sheet to calculate present and future rates of ice loss. They concluded that glaciers and ice caps are currently contributing about 60 percent of the ice delivered to the world’s oceans and the rate has been markedly accelerating in the past decade. The contribution is presently about 100 cubic miles of ice annually — a volume nearly equal to the water in Lake Erie — and is rising by about three cubic miles per year. The accelerating contribution of glaciers and ice caps is due in part to increased meltwater at the ice surface. Some glaciers are also experiencing increased meltwater at the base of the ice, which can lead to faster sliding of the glaciers against their beds.

This is especially the case for tidewater glaciers that discharge icebergs directly into the ocean, and their analogs, the outlet glaciers from the great ice sheets. Many tidewater glaciers are undergoing rapid thinning, stretching and retreat, which in turn causes them to speed up and deliver increased amounts of ice into the world’s oceans.

On the Decline of Coral Reef Ecosystems

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This has already been posted in the blogosphere recently, so I will put it out here for comment:

The supposedly already-degraded state of coral reef ecosystems is sometimes claimed to be a reason why anthropogenic global warming will have a major impact on the reefs, i.e. they are already close to extinction and can easily be tipped over the edge.

A recent paper** by Peter Ridd challenges the methodology used to conclude that the outer and inner Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are already 28% and 36% respectively, down the path towards ecological extinction.

**A CRITIQUE OF A METHOD TO DETERMINE LONG-TERM DECLINE OF CORAL REEF ECOSYSTEMS
by Peter V. Ridd. Reprinted from ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT, VOLUME 18 No. 6 2007

The full article is archived here.

Nature Reports Climate Change

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Getting accurate information on the effects of climate change and updates of the science is often tricky, particularly with the campaign for disinformation from the right wing think tanks. Nature magazine, which is in the top two scientific journals in the world, has put together a website which provides a digest of a topical issues associated with climate change. I found this very useful in catching up on some of the complex issues – particularly their new blog “Climate Feedback” which is doing a great job in dissecting climate change science and the wider implications of global warming.