Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification

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blue mussel

John Bruno emailed me a copy of a recent paper published yesterday in Geology (Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification) to comment on here on Climate Shifts – looks like Andrew Bolt has beaten me to the punch.

What you hear on the internet: calcification is greatest under the highest level of pCO2 for three species of invertebrates:

Screen shot 2009-12-04 at 9.26.16 AM

True.

What you don’t hear on the internet: in 10 of the 18 species studied, calfication decreased under the increasing pCO2.

Screen shot 2009-12-04 at 9.26.29 AM

What this study isn’t: proof that OCEAN ACIDIFICATION IS A GOOD THING CAUSE THEY CAN BUILD MORE SHELLS.

The Ries et al study is a great example of how much we don’t know about the specific mechanisms of marine calcification – s0 much so that one of the organisms in the study, the blue mussell (see the photograph above) exhibited no response to elevated pCO2. As Ries points out:

A combination of factors, including the organisms’ ability to regulate pH at the site of calcification, the extent of organic-layer coverage of their external shell, their biomineral solubility, and whether they utilize photosynthesis, may contribute to the disparity of these response patterns.

The ecological implications of the study are pretty interesting:

The crab exhibited improved shell-building capacity, and its prey, the clams, showed reduced calcification.  “This may initially suggest that crabs could benefit from this shift in predator-pray dynamics.  But without shells, clams may not be able to sustain their populations, and this could ultimately impact crabs in a negative way, as well,” Ries said. (Read More)

The Reis et al study is also a great example of the media paraphrasing science to fit their selective political agenda. Am I surprised to see variable responses of marine calcifiers to ocean acidification? No, not really – a report in Science last year showed that marine phytoplankton increase calcification and net primary production increased under higher CO2 conditions. Does this ‘debunk alarmism‘? No, not at all.

Launch of a new book on maritime law

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Book_Launch_MW_OHG_2009_12_02

Professor Michael White QC & Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (Photo credit: Peter Fogarty)

It gives me great pleasure to launch Prof Michael White’s latest book entitled Australia’s Offshore Laws, which has been published by a the Federation Press. Michael has had a distinguished career. Born in Brisbane, he joined the Australian Navy where he rose to Lt Commander.  In 1969 he left the Navy to study law at the University of Queensland and later at Bond University, where he was awarded degrees and commerce, law and eventually a Ph.D. in law.

After practising as a barrister for 16 years, he became a Queen’s Counsel in 1988.  In 1999, he joined the University of Queensland and became the inaugural Director of the Centre for Maritime Law. Michael has been a active member of the Centre for Marine Studies over the past several years, and has been highly productive in terms of writing.  In this regard, he has produced several books now as part of his role within the centre. Today, we are here to celebrate one of his latest outputs, where he has pulled together all of the Australian offshore laws into one place. Given the scale and complexity of this area, this is quite a significant feat indeed. And the subject matter is very timely.

In a world that is increasingly becoming global – not only through its economic systems but also through the challenges that face it faces from a burgeoning population to a rapidly changing climate – the need for Australia to have a clear perspective on the laws that govern its offshore waters couldn’t be more important. These are the legal instruments with which a vast number of resources and challenges are regulated – from fisheries, immigration, defence, customs and resource extraction.

You only have to think of the recent pressure on Australian resources both internally and externally, and the recent kerfuffle over refugees in our north-west waters to understand how important these laws and regulations are in terms of Australia’s well being. But as Michael has pointed out in the preface, our current structures within this area are “disparate, uncoordinated and overlapping”.

As Michael comments repeatedly in the book, this area is in need of important reform. It looks like he will be getting his wish – the Commonwealth Attorney General announced in September 2009 that the government would be pursuing reform in this area through a bill that will be introduced in 2010 called the “Maritime Powers Bill “. This book looks like it will be one of the key supporting resources for this bill and the subsequent reform of Australia’s offshore laws.

Well done Michael!

“Australian Offshore Laws”
Published 26 November 2009
Publisher The Federation Press
Hardback/508pp
ISBN 9781862877429
Australian RRP $195.00

Searching for the ‘smoking gun’ in the climate change code

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Since the now notorious CRU email distraction hack, it seems EVERYONE has become an expert in not only climate change but now code. Apparently ‘Armed and Dangerous‘ quote mined the code for ‘suspicious’ words like artificial, and stumbled across the following code in on of Briffa’s reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures.

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

…and reaches the following conclusion…

All you apologists weakly protesting that this is research business as usual and there are plausible explanations for everything in the emails? Sackcloth and ashes time for you. This isn’t just a smoking gun, it’s a siege cannon with the barrel still hot (Read more),

I’m not sure exactly how they managed to track this one given the person writing the code managed to spell ‘artificial’ incorrectly (searching for fudge, maybe?). Sorry to be an apologist here, but Tim Lambert over at Deltoid does a great job of showing exactly why its pretty pointless to analyse and critique code when you have no idea how the code functions. In summary, it’s neither false or deceptive. Still looking for that smoking gun?

But hey, code-mining is fun. Anyone here run a Linux system? Try this command:

find . -name *.[hcS] -not -regex ‘./.git.*’ | xargs cat | grep ”hack” | wc -l

Except replace the part in red with, oh, anything you like. If you want to see which files contain the word you are grepping for, use this:

egrep -H -A2 -ir “(hack)” *

Some of the comments in the Linux kernal are pretty revealing. You know, when you quote-mine for profanity:

arch/mips/pci/ops-bridge.c:      * IOC3 is fucked beyond believe …  Don’t even give the
arch/mips/pci/ops-bridge.c-      * generic PCI code a chance to look at it for real …
arch/mips/pci/ops-bridge.c-      */
–
arch/parisc/kernel/sys_parisc.c:/* Fucking broken ABI */
arch/parisc/kernel/sys_parisc.c-
arch/parisc/kernel/sys_parisc.c-#ifdef CONFIG_64BIT
–
drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c:        registered, to prevent the link/init ordering from fucking
drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c-         us over. */
drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c-      if (!blktrans_notifier.list.next)
––

lib/vsprintf.c: * Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up
lib/vsprintf.c- */
lib/vsprintf.c-
–

net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_nat_snmp_basic.c: * (And this is the fucking ‘basic’ method).
net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_nat_snmp_basic.c- */
net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_nat_snmp_basic.c-static int snmp_parse_mangle(unsigned char *msg,

Conclusions? Quote mining code is a waste of time unless you know what you are looking at.

Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) gazetted in resource-poor areas of the seascape

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IndoReef500x333

Theres a new paper out by Edgar et al in Ecological Applications that tracks the ecosystem effects of 14 MPA’s, and exploited companion sites, in southern Australia and Tanzania over a 16 year period.

The effects of the MPAs are interesting: biomass of large predators is on a steep increasing trend, while prey-species such as grazing molluscs and urchins are on a downward slope. I wonder what this will lead in terms of macroalgal abundances?

Another interesting finding is that

recently declared MPAs across Australia have been systematically located in areas with few fishery resources. Stakeholders with fishing interests presumably lobbied successfully against the “locking up” of exploitable fish stocks in SZs

I’ve stumbled upon many ecologists who tend to think that MPA’s are almost always designated in pristine areas, thus confounding interpretations of whether they are effective, i.e “the protected sites are healthy, not because they’re protected, but because they were healthy in the first place”. Those with more insights into how local resource users think and work will probably disagree on this, and usually claim the contrary, i.e. “people are pretty darn good at maneuvering the MPA-creation process so as not to include their best fishing grounds”. This study provides compelling evidence of the latter:

The abstract summarizes things nicely:

Tasmanian reef communities within ‘‘no-take’’ marine protected areas (MPAs) exhibited direct and indirect ecological changes that increasingly manifested over 16 years, eventually transforming into communities not otherwise present in the regional seascape. Data from 14 temperate and subtropical Australian MPAs further demonstrated that ecological changes continue to develop in MPAs over at least two decades, probably much longer. The continent-scale study additionally showed recently established MPAs to be consistently located at sites with low resource value relative to adjacent fished reference areas. This outcome was presumably generated by sociopolitical pressures and planning processes that aim to systematically avoid locations with valuable resources, potentially compromising biodiversity conservation goals. Locations that were formerly highly fished are needed within MPA networks if the networks are to achieve conservation aims associated with (1) safeguarding all regional habitat types, (2) protecting threatened habitats and species, and (3) providing appropriate reference benchmarks for assessing impacts of fishing. Because of long time lags, the ubiquity of fishing impacts, and the relatively recent establishment of MPAs, the full impact of fishing on coastal reefs has yet to be empirically assessed.

Apparently in Australia the science is far from settled

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It’s been quite a day here in Australia for politics. As John Quiggin put it, “Turnbull defeated, Hockey discredited, Abbott doomed“. In a nutshell: the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (our ‘climate change hero‘) proposed an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the Senate, which needed the help of the opposition to pass the bill with a majority vote. Last week, Malcolm Turnbull (leader of the opposition party) agreed on a deal to pass a modified version of the ETS, providing the go ahead for the Rudd’s legislation.

Why is this important? Whilst the Labour party see this as an essential step to curbing CO2 emissions and seek to pass the bill before Copenhagen next week, the opposition Liberal party (who are still busy debating as to whether climate change even exists) see this as a ‘$120bn energy tax‘. Since last week, turmoil in the Liberal Party (directly over the ETS scheme) prompted a leadership challenge, and Malcolm Turnbull was toppled in favour of Tony Abbott – a self-proclaimed climate change skeptic who will lead the Liberal party to renege the deal done with the Labour party over the ETS.

He said he was humbled but exhilarated by the win.  “We are gearing up for the fight of our lives,” he said at his first press conference as leader, adding that he was not frightened to fight an election against Kevin Rudd on climate change.

Tony Abbot rather famously once said:

“The argument on climate change is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. 80% of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.”

So wait: according to the Liberal party, the science is crap, but we still need an ETS? Don’t worry, apparently that’s just hyperbole and no longer his considered opinion. Thankfully, others in the Liberal party view this more honestly:

One unnamed moderate Liberal MP, quoted by AAP, put it less tactfully, saying the party had “f…ed ourselves over”.

So what happens next? Watch carefully. The possibility of members of the opposition rebelling and crossing the floor to vote with the government isn’t out of the question). However, if the Senate fails to pass the ETS before Copenhagen (which is looking increasingly likely), Rudd has the option of dissolving the senate and call a double dissolution election – taking the matter to the polls (and according to opinion polls, would clean sweep). Or, with the Austral summer holidays and the festive season coming up, there could be no easy resolution until the new year.

Google is in on the conspiracy too!

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Ever wondered why nobody takes the claims of the ‘blogosphere’ all too seriously? Cause apparently, according to the latest headlines, Google is actively censoring the BIGGEST HOAX OF OUR LIFETIME.

Google blocking ‘climategate’ autosuggestion
Google appears to be censoring climate emails searches
Climategate: Googlegate?
“Climategate” surpasses “Global Warming” on Google
Climategate: The IPCC Scumbags of Fraud Achieve New Record, In Google

According to one blog:

The search engine Google.com was blocking the word “climategate” from its autosuggestion routines, and appears to be still doing so.

Screenshots show that when a user tries to spell out the word “climategate,” even when he spells it out almost completely, the Google routine fails to suggest the word–unless that word is part of the user’s prior search-engine history. Instead, the autosuggestion routine returns “Climate Guatemala” and “Climate Guatemala City.”

Clearly this is CENSORSHIP!@#$!@#$!

Given the power of Google to restrict access to information in such an insidious way, it actually begs for a formal investigation.

Indeed! Hang them for treason! It’s just all one big conspiracy. Especially because AL GORE IS IN ON THE CONSPIRACY TOO AS A SENIOR ADVISOR TO GOOGLE.

Despite the attempts to sensationalize the CRU email hack (“climategate”, no points for originality there), this will eventually die a quiet if not prolonged death – just like the last great scandal over the Yamal data, which turned out to be a not so smoking gun either (despite the amount of noise generated). Meanwhile, see this great post by John Bruno (“You want data? You can’t handle the data!“) about how wrong the meme of “those scientists won’t share their data” really is, and check out the Real Climate list of availible data here.

Update: Google appears not to be so active in their censorship here in Australia.

adkt43

You want data? You can’t handle the data!

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jack

In response to incessant whining about data sharing by  AGW skeptics, those selfish scientists over at RealClimate have created a site that includes links to a number of climatic and oceanographic data sets.   And it just barely scratches the surface of which is indeed, and has long been, publicly and readily available.

Just as a sampler, there is LOTS of RAW and PROCESSED climate and sea level data, e.g.;

Note the date, November 30, 2009, on which AGW skeptic lie #1062, known as “Those scientists won’t share their data” was debunked.

 

Will it matter?  No.

Will we stop hearing about this?  No.

IOW, do you think this helpful portal to climate data will quell the growing big media meme that scientists don’t share their data?  Again – and call me crazy – I am betting no.   As long as there is one scientists of any flavor whom for whatever reason is obligated not to pass on data that does not belong to her/him (e.g., that was only used through a one-time-use-agreement) then skeptics will use this as yet another red herring to delay developing green energy resources.

I am not a climate scientist, but I can attest first hand that it is REALLY easy to get any type of climate data you want.  Maybe too easy, given how easy it is to misinterpret it or otherwise muck things up!  Getting most of it involves a simple google search, some sniffing around the database of interest and a download.  In my experience, the issue is that there is TOO MUCH climate data available online.  I have more than once been hopelessly lost in NOAAs or NODCs climate data portals.  Also, once you download it, doing something meaningful or appropriate with it is another matter.  Sometimes the records are simple and interpretable. Other times, you need some experience or a collaborator who does this sort of thing for a living.

Experiment:  what would I find if I googled “climate change data”?

Result, over 46,400,000 hits.  That is right.  FORTY SIX MILLION AND FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND hits.  (and it only took 0.22 seconds)

Wow, that was easy!  And I didn’t even have to file a FOIA to get those selfish, corrupt scientists to spit out their coveted data.

On page one of my search output, there are 10 results including some newspaper stories arguing that scientists don’t share data and (ironically) also several portals where one can easily download climate data such as the Climate Change Data Portal, a NASA master data directory, the NOAA climate Program office, the IPCC data distribution center, and the NOAA National Climate Data Center.

At least five of the first ten results contain a wealth of climate data.  Free for anyone to download, use and abuse.  Extrapolating, without any justification whatsoever, to the all the results, means that there are 23,200,000 online data repositories.  Obviously, there are not that many.  But one could spend several lifetimes analyzing the data from just the first five results.

google

When my former PhD student Liz Selig and I needed to build site-specific, fine-resolution SST databases for the 47 AIMS reef monitoring sites (for a project that looked at the effects of ocean warming on coral disease) we somehow convinced a real satellite oceanographer, Dr. Ken Casey, to help us (Ken is now the technical director of the NODC).   And thank goodness.  It took years to get that all set up.  And it was a lot more work and more technical than we expected.  Even moving that much data around is a non-trivial feat (at the time, Liz was driving 500GB hard drives between Chapel Hill and NOAA in DC).

Like so many other databases, our resulting database, the Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database or CorTAD, is freely available online here.  We regularly share it with colleagues, NGOs, etc.  And we don’t get paid (by the public or otherwise) for the hours we put in to help people access it.  Ill post more about the CorTAD below, but the point is, the internet is just saturated with all kinds of climate data that clearly demonstrates the oceans and land are warming as well as a wide range of biological and ecosystem responses to that warming.  It is a lie to claim otherwise.  The fact that not every database ever built is readily available to anyone who asks, DOES NOT MEAN THAT SCIENTIST IN GENERAL OR CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN PARTICULAR DON’T SHARE THEIR DATA.

From A Few Good Men, written by Aaron Sorkin

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I’m entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: You’re goddamn right I did!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo&w=425&h=344]

Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database

-Get the CoRTAD data files via HTTP here-
-Get the CoRTAD data files via FTP here-
-Get the CoRTAD data files via OPeNDAP here-

About the Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database:

There is fairly broad scientific consensus that global-scale stressors are partially responsible for the decline of coral reefs (eg., Aronson et al., Science, v302, 2003; Harvell et al., Science, v285, 1999). One likely candidate is an increase in SST in much of the tropics. Yet, it is not even known how many reefs have experienced an increase in the frequency or magnitude of thermal stress, and little is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of coral reef temperatures and how these related to broader climate change. To address these gaps in understanding, the National Oceanographic Data Center in partnership with the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill has developed a unique Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database (CoRTAD). The CoRTAD development was funded by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, and the database usesPathfinder SSTs to quantify thermal stress patterns on the world’s coral reefs since 1985.

The CoRTAD contains a collection of sea surface temperature (SST) and related thermal stress metrics, developed specifically for coral reef ecosystem applications but relevant to other ecosystems as well. The CoRTAD contains global, approximately 4 km resolution SST data on a weekly time scale from 1985 through 2005. In addition to SST, it contains SST anomaly (SSTA, weekly SST minus weekly climatological SST), thermal stress anomaly (TSA, weekly SST minus the maximum weekly climatological SST), SSTA Degree Heating Week (SSTA_DHW, sum of previous 12 weeks when SSTA is greater than or equal to 1 degree C), SSTA Frequency (number of times over previous 52 weeks that SSTA is greater than or equal to 1 degree C), TSA DHW (TSA_DHW, also known as a Degree Heating Week, sum of previous 12 weeks when TSA is greater than or equal to 1 degree C),and TSA Frequency (number of times over previous 52 weeks that TSA is greater than or equal to 1 degree C).

A few selected graphics showing the mean, minimum, and maximum temperatures from the CoRTAD are shown below to given a small glimpse into the database. Click on the graphic for an expanded view, or follow the link below the graphic to display the full resolution TIFF version. The CoRTAD is a large and extensive collection of data. At the end of this page, a listing of the files making up the CoRTAD along with their sizes is provided. For reference, you can see a Map of the CoRTAD Tiles which illustrates how the global ocean was divided for processing purposes. All of the data are currently available in HDF Scientific Data Set Format.

During 2008, the CoRTAD was developed to the point where it became ready for public use. This process involved publication of the CoRTAD procedures and results, development of FGDC metadata, and placement of the CoRTAD in the NODC archives and CoRIS systems. For more information, please contact Kenneth.Casey@noaa.gov.

British National Party to represent EU at Copenhagen

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The Guardian reports with the news that Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, is set to represent the European parliament at the Copenhagen climate change conference next week. A bit of background: the BNP is the British ‘far-right’ political party that restricts its membership to British people of “Caucasian origin“, who seek to return Britain to a ‘white ethnicity’ that existed prior to the 1940’s. With such a platform, it was quite a surprise when two members of the BNP (under leader Nick Griffin) were elected in 2009 to become part of the European parliament. Here are a few of Griffin’s viewpoints:

“We believe not just that our people are different from others, but that such genuine diversity is worth preserving. It is not a matter of ‘superiority’ or ‘inferiority’.”

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat…I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria.”

“You need to look at the KORAN. Don’t believe what the papers say about Islam being a peace loving religion… Believe us, Islam is the biggest threat Britain has ever faced – Read the Koran and you’ll find out the truth“

Concerned? You should be. The BNP seems willing to accept environmental issues when they can advance their anti-immigration policies – for example, they claim their policies will reduce carbon dioxide levels by reducing the number of immigrants in Britain using roads, cars, trains and buses.

Here is what Griffin had to say in a speech to the British parliament last week:

Griffin denounced those who warn of the consequences of climate change as “cranks”. He said they had reached “an Orwellian consensus” that was “based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics”.

“The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology… But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao.”

To quote Tim Yeo (chairman of the British Commons environmental audit committee):

“If the future prosperity of the human race, in the face of climate change, depends on the contributions of people like Nick Griffin, there is little hope for any of us.”

new CSIRO report on climate change impacts in Australia

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report pic

CSIRO recently release a new report on marine climate change impacts in Australia.  It can be viewed or downloaded here.  The summary is below.

What is happening?

Ocean temperatures around Australia have warmed 0.7°C since 1910-1929, with south-west and south-eastern waters warming fastest (HIGH confidence)

Carbon dioxide dissolving in the oceans has lowered pH by 0.1 units since 1750, representing a 30% increase in hydrogen ion (acid) concentration (HIGH confidence)

Global sea levels have risen by 20 cm over 1870-2004 (HIGH confidence)

Little evidence of change in wave heights due to climate  change (LOW-MEDIUM confidence); Strong interannual wave directional variability associated with ENSO on eastern coast (MEDIUM-HIGH confidence)

Southward flow has strengthened so warmer, saltier water is now found 350 km further south compared to 60 years ago (HIGH confidence)

Little evidence of change in ENSO variability due to global warming (LOW-MEDIUM confidence)

Southward flow has slightly weakened since the 1970s (MEDIUM confidence)

Expansion of mangroves into salt marsh habitat in south-east Australia and into freshwater wetlands in northern Australia driven by sea-level rise and soil subsidence associated with reduced rainfall (MEDIUM confidence)

A southern range extension of 300 km into Moreton Bay, Qld, of the tropical seagrass Halophila minor consistent with a warming and a strengthening East Australian Current (LOW confidence)

Loss of algal habitat off eastern Tasmania associated with a southward range expansion of a sea urchin assisted by the strengthening of the East Australian Current and warmer temperatures (HIGH confidence)

Expansion of sub-tropical species, including harmful species, into south-eastern waters is driven by warming and a strengthening of the East Australian Current (MEDIUM confidence)

Although there are no long-term data in Australia, species elsewhere are shifting distributions polewards (LOW confidence)

Sea surface warming has led to extensive coral bleaching events and declines in coral condition on the Great Barrier Reef and on north-western reefs (HIGH confidence). Ocean acidification and increased thermal stress are the likely causes of a >10% reduction in the growth rates of massive Porites corals on the Great Barrier Reef (MEDIUM confidence)

Numbers of tropical species at sub-tropical and temperate latitudes are increasing as temperatures warm indicating that some species are shifting their ranges southward (LOW confidence)

Southward range expansions in south-eastern waters are linked to warming temperatures and a strengthening of the East Australian Current; estuarine fish abundances are linked to annual fluctuations in freshwater discharge (rainfall), which is declining (MEDIUM confidence)

Replacement of small cool-temperate species in southern waters by sub-tropical and tropical species driven by warmer temperatures (LOW confidence)

Warmer sand temperatures, from increased air temperature, has increased mortality of sea turtle eggs and hatchlings at the Mon Repos rookery in south-east Qld (HIGH confidence)

Little penguins are altering their breeding time in response to warmer temperatures, and chick growth of tropical and sub-tropical seabirds has slowed in response to less food availability as temperatures warm (LOW confidence)

What is likely to happen in this century?

Australian ocean temperatures will be 1°C warmer by 2030 and 2.5°C warmer by 2100 (HIGH confidence), with the greatest warming in south-eastern waters (HIGH confidence)

Ocean pH will decrease by a further 0.2-0.3 units by 2100 (MEDIUM confidence)

Global sea levels will continue to rise 5-15 cm by 2030 and 18-82 cm by 2100 (MEDIUM confidence)

No significant change in surface waves along Australia’s eastern coast (LOW confidence); Increasing storm wave frequency, and increasing southerly wave direction, along Australia’s southern and western coasts (LOW confidence)

Likely to strengthen by a further 20% by 2100 (MEDIUM confidence)

A background “El Niño-like” pattern is projected this century (MEDIUM confidence), with no change in ENSO event amplitude or frequency (LOW confidence)

Weakening will continue over the coming century (LOW confidence)

Mangrove areas are likely to expand further landward, driven by sea-level rise and soil subsidence due to reduced rainfall (MEDIUM confidence)

Declines in seagrass abundance and extent due to sea-level rise, increased storminess and warmer temperatures (MEDIUM confidence)

Range shifts and local extinctions of cool-temperate species will occur along Australia’s temperate coastline (MEDIUM confidence)

Increased episodes of harmful algal blooms in south-eastern waters in response to extreme rainfall events and warming temperatures (LOW confidence)

Changes in community structure resulting from modified productivity regimes, as well as range extensions with warming, such as the potential for venomous jellyfish to extend southward, particularly on the east coast (LOW confidence)

Frequency and severity of mass coral-bleaching events will increase as temperatures warm, leading to declines in coral reef health (HIGH confidence). Ocean acidification will reduce coral growth rates making reefs more susceptible to erosion and disturbance from storms (HIGH confidence)

Loss of diversity and widespread changes in the composition of coral reef fish communities following degradation of coral reefs (HIGH confidence)

Breeding populations of tropical species establish in southern waters; reduction in the abundance of estuarine species as rainfall, therefore riverflow, is reduced (MEDIUM confidence)

Increased occurrence of tropical species in southern waters (MEDIUM confidence)

Declines of reef-associated sea snakes as temperatures warm and coral reefs degrade (LOW confidence); some tropical sea turtle nesting beaches will produce 100% females (MEDIUM confidence)

Warmer temperatures and an El Niño-like future climate are expected to reduce food availability for breeding seabirds leading to a reduction in breeding success (MEDIUM confidence)