Submission to the Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends In, Andpreparedness
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Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events Submission to the Senate Inquiry on recent trends in, and preparedness for, extreme weather events By Dr Andrew Glikson Earth and paleo-climate scientist Visiting Fellow, Australian National University Honorary Professor, University of Queensland Summary 1. Global warming and extreme weather events 2. Perspectives from extreme weather events in the US 3. Effects on Australia 4. Mitigation and adaptation 1 Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events Summary Given the failure of the global community to date to control and mitigate carbon emissions, the frequency and scale of extreme weather events, including droughts, heat waves, fires, floods and hurricanes, can only increase, posing severe existential risks around the globe and in Australia. A rise in the frequency of bushfires and floods is observed in Australia from 2007. Further to emergency measures, this calls for restructuring of elements of Australian agriculture, industrial and transport systems. The Australian continent is in particular danger from: (1) Heat waves and fire-storms affecting gum forests originally adapted to mild Mediterranean conditions; (2) prolonged droughts in agriculturally productive regions; (3) Major floods related to enhancement of the hydrological cycle, in particular along the eastern and southeastern seaboards but also in the interior, and (4) Hurricanes in northeast and northwest Australia. With temperature rise projected toward +4oC later in the 21 st century, urgent attempts at mitigation and preparations for rescue and adaptation are imperative. This requires: Mitigation: Abrupt decrease in carbon emissions coupled with attempts at atmospheric CO2 draw-down, since the present level of 397-400 ppm is generating amplifying feedbacks, including sea ice and land ice melt, methane release and fires. Emergency measures: Advance preparation for enhancement of rescue services vis-à-vis fire, flood and hurricane events require major increase in the budgets of the SES, fire-fighting, ambulance and hospital emergency services, and training of military personnel in rescue operations.. Adaptation: development of flood and storm retaining walls along rivers and beach fronts, drought-proof agricultural systems, application of ‘water-from-wind’ technology, solar-powered desalination plants, self-sustained drip agriculture and long-range water pipelines from well watered regions for irrigation and water storage.in drought-prone areas, encouragement of small- scale market gardens and domestic food production. Given the current pace and scale of extreme weather events, time is of the essence; 2 Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events 1. Global warming and extreme weather events Weather extremes events occur at the high and low ends of the climate variability range, where a limited change in the mean climate parameter, mainly temperature, may ensue in large change in the frequency of events such as drought, fire, flood or hurricane. The rise in land and sea temperature ensues in heat waves, droughts, increased evaporation and thereby precipitation, floods and cyclones. The rise in mean global temperatures of +0.9 oC since 1750 has involved a rise in the mean global land temperatures of +1.5 oC [1], as represented by NASA, NOAA, Hadley and Berkeley data sets (Figure 1). Further potential warming is deduced from the mean elevated energy levels of the atmosphere of +3.1 Watt/m2, which translates to +2.3oC, of which about 1.1 oC is masked by sulphur aerosols (Figure 2), consistent with the IPCC AR4 values (Figure 3).has led to a shift in temperature distribution (Figure 4) and to a 2 to 3 fold increase in the frequency of extreme weather events (Figures 5 - 7). The linear nature of global warming trends projected by the IPCC since 1990 [2, 3] tended to give the public and policy makers the impression as if sufficient time remains for economies to mitigate climate change through conversion from carbon-emitting industries to non-polluting utilities. However, as is shown below, this impression lulls societies into a false sense of security Paleo-climate records display abrupt shifts in state of the atmosphere/ocean/cryosphere system, in particular as observed in the ice core records of the last 800,000 years, suggesting high climate sensitivity to changes in radiative forcing, whether triggered by solar insolation or by changes in concentration of greenhouse gases. In some cases marked changes were triggered over periods as short as centuries or decades [4] and in some instances in a few years [5]. Examples of abrupt climate shifts are the 1470 years-long Dansgaard-Oeschger intra-glacial cycles triggered by solar signals amplified by ocean currents and the ‘younger dryas’ and ~8.5 kyr cold intervals triggered by ice melt water and collapse of the North Atlantic Thermohaline Current [4]. The scale and rate of the rise in atmospheric energy levels, in particular since the 1970s (Figure 1), is expressed by an intensified hydrological cycle, heat waves and hurricanes around the globe [6 - 9], consistent with projections of future tipping point [10]. Between 1900 and 2000 the ratio of observed to expected extremes in monthly mean temperatures have risen from ~1.0 to ~3.5 [6]. From about 1970 the Power Dissipation Index (a parameter which combines storm intensity, duration, and frequency) of North Atlantic storms increased from ~1.0 to ~2.7-5.5, in accord with tropical sea surface temperatures which rose by about 1.0 degree Celsius [6]. Coumou and Rahmstorf [8] state: “ The ostensibly large number of recent extreme weather events has triggered intensive discussions, both in- and outside the scientific community, on whether 3 Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events they are related to global warming. Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heat waves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. For other types of extreme, such as storms, the available evidence is less conclusive, but based on observed trends and basic physical concepts it is nevertheless plausible to expect an increase .” Hansen et al. (2012) [11] analyzed the distribution of anomalous weather events relative to the 1951–1980 base line, displaying a shift toward extreme heat events (Figure 4). The authors observe: “ hot extreme[s], which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period (1951-1980), now typically [cover] about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small .” The consequences for the biosphere of accelerating climate change are discussed by Baronsky et al. (2012) [12] in the following terms: “ Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence.” and “Climates found at present on 10–48% of the planet are projected to disappear within a century, and climates that contemporary organisms have never experienced are likely to cover 12–39% of Earth. The mean global temperature by 2070 (or possibly a few decades earlier) will be higher than it has been since the human species evolved .” [12]. At 400 ppm CO2 the committed climate conditions of more than +2 oC have reached levels which last existed in the peak Pliocene epoch (5.3-2.6 million years ago), triggering an increase in extreme weather events, as evidenced by reports by the World Meteorological Organization (Figure 5) and Munich Re-Insurance (Figures 6). Current trends in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are evident in the USA [14] (Figures 6 and 7). An increase in the The relatively stable climate conditions which allowed farming and thereby the rise of civilization are being increasingly compromised by the release of more than 560 billion ton of carbon (>560 GtC) into the atmosphere since 1750, when the total original carbon level was ~590 GtC. 4 Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events 2. Perspectives from the USA The position of much of the USA between the warm pool of the Gulf of Mexico in the south and the Greenland-Labrador sub-Arctic zone in the renders the continent susceptible to extreme weather events, as documented in NOAA’s site “Weather-Ready Nation” http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/globalwarming.html An overall rise in the frequency of meteorological events, hydrological events and climatological events in the US is recorded by Munich Re-Insurance, from a total of less than 60 during 1980- 1988 to mostly above 100 during 1987 – 1994 to near-200 from 2006 (Figure 6). A corresponding rise during 1910-2010 in the 5-10 years moving average climate extremes index is shown in Figure 7. An increase in Atlantic Basin hurricane intensity is shown in Figure 8, A list of extreme weather events in the US in 2012 is given in Table 1, including 248 deaths and $119 billion. Table 1 . Extreme weather events, USA 2012 http://thinkprogress.org/tag/extreme-weather/ 5 Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Recent Trends in, and Preparedness for, Extreme Weather Events 3.