Why is climate change such a threat in Australia?

Question

other than the sea rising what else can it do to Australia I'm curious?

Answer 1

The big threat to Australia is fresh water, or the lack of it.  Australia is a huge desert with habitable fringes round the outside determined by the amount of rainfall that falls.  A Surveyor General of South Australia George Goyder drew a line that proved astonishingly accurate.  Farmers who attempted to save taxes by farming outside the line found their crops failed and one by one they left.

Climate change would move this line outwards.  Increases in temperature put more demand on water supplies, which are met by drawing on boreholes and out of rivers and creeks.   The situation in South Australia (which I have visited) is that the great Murray and Darling rivers are becoming soupy trickles, and the drop in the water table has led to mass salination of the soil making it impossible to sustain farmland.  Also over 40C eucalyptus oil in trees becomes vapour with the flammability of petrol.  When I was there in the summer about half of Kangaroo Island went up in flames.

In Queensland and New South Wales last summer, the opposite occurred. Climate Change has been altering the ocean currents in the Pacific and created a El Nino event which flooded large parts of these states, washing out homes and farmland.

Answer 2

sea aint going to rise....watch the great global warming swindal to see why. I live in Australia and its because we already have droughts and they fear that they'll get longer and tougher each time. Yes it will but people have always dealt with it back then and it has happened before.  

Answer 3

If enough people believe in it, it could cause major tax increases.  

Answer 4

It really isn't a threat to Australia or any other country. I'm not one of those people who doesn't believe in global warming, I certainly believe it's happening, but not as fast and bad as some scientists and politicians say it is. I think it’s partly a result of pollution from humans, but also natural chances in the Earth’s climate. Earth has been around for 4.5 BILLION years and humans have only been on this planet for a tiny tiny percentage of that time, so we don‘t have enough information about the planet‘s past environmental history and climate change history to safely conclude that “global warming“ is a direct result of humans. Our knowledge of planetary climate change only goes back several hundred years. We also can't expect the weather / climate patterns to stay exactly the same forever. I personally believe that a lot of this global warming paranoia is for the purpose of making money for big corporations. Just think of all the money companies make from selling their new "eco friendly" products. General Electronics (GE) has been making MILLIONS with their newly branded environmentally friendly products ever since all this paranoia about global warming started. Now don’t get me wrong, I think some of those products are good and effective in reducing our carbon footprint, but those companies are still making millions from all these new, supposedly environmentally friendly products. Also, many politicians are running on the platform of stopping global warming. Creating fear in the public about global warming can help politicians get elected. I find it scary that so many people are jumping on the bandwagon and becoming paranoid about global warming just because a few famous politicians have said we’re all going to die if we don’t sell everything we own and replace it with environmentally friendly products.

The biggest threat to Australia is the sea levels slightly rising, but not enough to do extreme damage or permanently change the landscape of Australian. There could also possibly be warmer summers and warmer winters, but here’s an interesting fact for you … at the other side of the world in Canada, last winter was the coldest winter Canada has ever had. Considering that global warming apparently poses a major threat to Canada, it’s odd that just last winter hey had their coldest winter in over 15 years (source below). Makes you wonder if global warming is really as bad as people say it is, or just paranoia to make rich people more rich.  

Answer 5

I keep hearing people talking about falling amounts of rainfall and increasing saline content of rivers. It seems a little odd though, as I have seen actual data shows salinity has been going down and rainfall has been increased (overall trend) with the exception of a recent drought (as the climate has cooled slightly).

I think the main issue is that recently rain has been falling in the wrong places highlighting the poor allocation of water resources in certain areas.

Sea rise wont be an issue, its well documented that the figures are greatly exagerated, and a simple hand calcs demonstrate that.

Being in the southern hemisphere and sparesly populated Australia is unlikely to be to significently effected by any changes in temperature. Records for the last centuary show little change in weather or temperature in New Zealand or Australia as global temperatures have increased.

Obviously the warmer periods of the past didnt cause any major  issues for the aboriginals who have inhabited australia for thousands of years.

Answer 6

The secret is good planned water management for recycling waste water into usable fresh and nuclear power for low cost desalinization. Read "The Strategy of Technology"

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange...

Answer 7

Australia is perhaps the continent most vulnerable to climate change as it was already quite marginal in terms of habitability. Elmbeard is spot on... rainfall in the populated coastal regions has decreased and temperatures have increased.

Below are some links re Australia and Climate Change (with a focus on economic and business ramifications). Here are some highlights:

"Australian temperatures have, on average, risen by about 1°C with an increase in the frequency of heatwaves"

"increased frequency of hot days"

"declining total rainfall in metropolitan and agricultural regions"

"Increasing severity of drought and bushfires"

"Rising sea levels"

"a 50% drop in water supply to the reservoirs supplying Perth"

"near-record low water levels in storages in much of south-eastern Australia"

"observed changes in vegetation, wetlands, terrestrial vertebrates, marine birds and coral reefs are consistent with regional warming trends"

P.S. To Flower:

As the planet warms ("global warming"), weather patterns change ("climate change"). The exact nature of the change varies from place to place. For example, should the Greenland ice sheet melt, the huge amount of fresh water released into the North Atlantic could - note, "could" - knock out the Gulf Stream making NW Europe and NE America/Canada significantly colder.

Having the coldest winter in 15 years in one place while another (e.g. Australia has its worst drought) and another (e.g. SE Asia)  experiences their worst floods is entirely in line with predictions of AGW.

"Change" (extremes in weather such as very cold winters) is what people will experience as a consequence of "warming".

Oh, and the link you provide is not fact about last winter - it is a prediction for next winter; Canada has not "had their coldest winter in over 15 years"; just a prediction...

In addition, this prediction is based on a bad La Nina effect - no one has said that AGW will mean that other factors affecting weather cease to exist!

Answer 8

It's not a threat. they just want you to believe it is so you put up more of your tax dollars without questioning it.