Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 15, 2006

The Loss of the Baiji

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It seems the most endangered mammal on earth, a species of freshwater dolphin from the Yangtze River in China, is now extinct. That’s the conclusion from a group of specialists who recently spent six weeks searching for the dolphin, also known as the baiji, along the Yangtze.

The extinction of the baiji has taken place at a time of unprecedented interest and concern for their large relative, the minke whale. We have know for some time that there are probably over a million minke whales, but perhaps no more than a dozen baiji. Yet so much money has been spent campaigning to “save the minke whale”. Where are our priorities when it comes to conservation? I wrote on this issue in the last IPA Review in a piece entitled, “The Loss of the Baiji’.

baiji whistle.jpg

This picture is from www.baiji.org.

Click here and you can listen to a recording of the baiji’s whistle.

So beautiful.

The Great Grain Drain: A Note from Aaron Edmonds

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Hi Jennifer,

Globally grain stocks have shrunk to levels not seen since the early 1970s. Now to most this may seem like a seemingly unimportant fact. But this reality needs to be put into perspective.

In 1970 when the world was feeding itself out of the same sized grain inventories there were 3.7 billion people. Today there are over 6.5 billion people meaning the world is carrying near an extra 3 billion hungry mouths to 1970. We also now have a significant portion of the global crop being turned into biofuels – cereals and sugars for ethanol and oilseeds and tallows for biodiesel.

Once these biofuel plants are built they generally do not stop consuming feedstock. Shareholders do not make money from plants sitting idle. Other end users that have emerged are combustible stoves and water heaters in grain producing areas where low prices have encouraged feedstock substitution away from fossil fuels.

There are over 2 million corn stoves in North America alone that consume close to 25kg each per day in the cooler months – a total loss of 50,000 tonnes a day. What this serves to highlight is that grain prices have been too slow to appreciate to discourage waste in non food sectors. Once end using infrastructure is in place and consuming it generally will take significant grain price inflation to stop this consumption. Grain values in effect need to reach and in fact surplus energy parity values to prevent loss to biofuel end uses.

On the other end of the grain chain are the producers who are facing severe limitations in their ability to actually increase let alone maintain production. Depleting water aquifers, drought affected irrigation sources, competition for water and reduced rainfall are issues that are real and impacting on production output today.

And with an anticipated ‘grain boom’ there are also some such as myself who are predicting capacity constraints. For example, an inability for the fertilizer supply chain to be able to cope with demand from an agricultural sector keen to capitalise on rising prices. Potash fertilizer may be especially short moving forward. Hyperinflation in such inputs in itself is damaging to the output potential of third world cropping systems. Competition for land resources by staple food crops will be fierce and ‘illogical’ crop choices of the past (eg fruit crops) will be swept aside for fields of wheat, rice, corn and soybeans.

Output driven technologies such as transgenics will need to be embraced worldwide and embraced with fervour. Most would argue it is better to be fed than dead and anyone disagreeing with this is likely unwilling to be the first to go without as shortages unfold.

Environmentalism has failed for there is not one so called green group with a truly sustainable model of food production to promote today.

2007 will be a critical year for the world’s staple food supply. Because a willingness to try and produce our way out of an approaching deficiency in grain supplies may be overriden by constraints out of everyones hands – weather and water. There are already early signs that China’s 06-07 winter wheat areas are showing the effects of drought and areas within the Midwestern wheatbelt of the US have inadequate soil moisture levels. Here in Australia our summer crop plantings are well down from previous years. This developing crisis should concern everyone who eats food.

Regards,
Aaron Edmonds
2002 Nuffield Scholar
President Australian Sandalwood Network
www.australianuts.com

Under Threat in Australia, Grassland Birds?

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While groups like the Wilderness Society run advertisements suggesting that in western Queensland and New South Wales broadscale tree clearing is a major environmental threat, many local landholders argue the problem is quite different. They claim that trees are replacing once open grassland over vast areas and that these ‘invasive woody weeds’ are the real environmental issue.

Yesterday, On Line Opinion published an article by Gillian Hogendyk* entitled ‘An Alternative Perspective on Tree Clearing’ providing some support for the landholder’s position.

Gillian writes:

“Early settlement caused massive changes to the ecology of the region. Grasslands were overgrazed, fires were put out, native shrubs and trees began to invade grasslands as early as 1870, rabbits invaded, drought struck, and wool prices collapsed.

By 1901 the Western Division of NSW was in an economic and ecological crisis, and a Royal Commission was called to try and formulate some solutions. Today landholders claim they are still battling the invading scrub, and that recently introduced native vegetation regulations are making their job almost impossible…

“So how is all this affecting the bird life of the region? In 2000 intensive biodiversity surveys were carried out by “West 2000” at a number of sites in the Cobar, Wanaaring, and Ivanhoe localities…

“Two examples of threatened species that were found to prefer less woody shrub cover were the Pink Cockatoo and Hooded Robin…

“Landholders of the Cobar Peneplain claim that 80 per cent of the threatened species of the region are dependent on grasslands and open woodland habitat. They claim that while many fauna species use the dense shrublands and trees for roosting and nesting, they are almost always seen feeding in the grasslands and croplands nearby. Their claims are supported by the known habitat requirements of the threatened birds recorded from the Cobar region. The majority of species listed rely on open woodlands and different types of grasslands as feeding habitat.

Of interest in this debate are the nationwide findings on woodland bird populations reported in The State of Australia’s Birds 2005: Woodlands and Birds, a Birds Australia publication. This document compared the reporting rates of the two nationwide atlases carried out by Birds Australia in 1977-81 and 1998-2002…

“Surprisingly, despite the “doom and gloom” text, the reporting rate of the majority of woodland-grassland birds had actually remained unchanged or increased over the 20- year period (for all woodland-grassland species: 48 per cent increased, 38 per cent did not change, and 13 per cent decreased). However the results were very different for grassland-dependent and ground-feeding woodland-grassland birds. These species showed much higher rates of decline over the 20-year period than the species that feed in the canopy layer.”

Read the full article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5265

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* Gillian is a Director and founding members of the Australian Environment Foundation and so am I.

Beware Global Warming: Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow

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There have been calls for the sacking of the chancellor of British Columbia’s Thompson Rivers University, Nancy Green Raine, after she suggested on a Canadian breakfast show last week that:

“In science, there’s almost never black and white. We don’t know what next week’s weather is going to be. To say in 50 or 100 years, the temperature is going to do this, is a bit of a stretch for me.”*

A Canadian government meteorologist joined the public attack, questioned why Greene Raine would offer comment about something on which she is not versed. He noted that no one comes to him for advice on skiing.

Chancellor Nancy Green Raine was once an Olympic skiing champion.

We are expected to be concerned about climate change, and to do so something about climate change, but not expected to make up our own minds on the issue!

Now here’s something worth worrying about at youtube.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzWfguDjZU

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* from The Wall Street Journal, 13 December 2006

The Status of Global Climate in 2006: Press Release from the WMO

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GENEVA, 14 December (WMO) – The global mean surface temperature in 2006 is currently estimated to be + 0.42°C above the 1961-1990 annual average (14°C/57.2°F), according to the records maintained by Members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2006 is currently estimated to be the sixth warmest year on record. Final figures will not be released until March 2007.

Averaged separately for both hemispheres, 2006 surface temperatures for the northern hemisphere (0.58°C above 30-year mean of 14.6°C/58.28°F) are likely to be the fourth warmest and for the southern hemisphere (0.26°C above 30-year mean of 13.4°C/56.12°F), the seventh warmest in the instrumental record from 1861 to the present.

Since the start of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen approximately 0.7°C. But this rise has not been continuous. Since 1976, the global average temperature has risen sharply, at 0.18°C per decade. In the northern and southern hemispheres, the period 1997-2006 averaged 0.53°C and 0.27°C above the 1961-1990 mean, respectively.

Regional temperature anomalies
The beginning of 2006 was unusually mild in large parts of North America and the western European Arctic islands, though there were harsh winter conditions in Asia, the Russian Federation and parts of eastern Europe. Canada experienced its mildest winter and spring on record, the USA its warmest January-September on record and the monthly temperatures in the Arctic island of Spitsbergen (Svalbard Lufthavn) for January and April included new highs with anomalies of +12.6°C and +12.2°C, respectively.

Persistent extreme heat affected much of eastern Australia from late December 2005 until early March with many records being set (e.g. second hottest day on record in Sydney with 44.2°C/111.6°F on 1 January). Spring 2006 (September-November) was Australia’s warmest since seasonal records were first compiled in 1950. Heat waves were also registered in Brazil from January until March (e.g. 44.6°C/112.3°F in Bom Jesus on 31 January – one of the highest temperatures ever recorded in Brazil).

Several parts of Europe and the USA experienced heat waves with record temperatures in July and August. Air temperatures in many parts of the USA reached 40°C/104°F or more. The July European-average land-surface air temperature was the warmest on record at 2.7°C above the climatological normal.

Autumn 2006 (September-November) was exceptional in large parts of Europe at more than 3°C warmer than the climatological normal from the north side of the Alps to southern Norway. In many countries it was the warmest autumn since official measurements began: records in central England go back to 1659 (1706 in The Netherlands and 1768 in Denmark).

Prolonged drought in some regions
Long-term drought continued in parts of the Greater Horn of Africa including parts of Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the United Republic of Tanzania. At least 11 million people were affected by food shortages; Somalia was hit by the worst drought in a decade.

For many areas in Australia, the lack of adequate rainfall in 2006 added to significant longer-term dry conditions, with large regions having experienced little recovery from the droughts of 2002-2003 and 1997-1998. Dry conditions have now persisted for 5 to 10 years in some areas and in south-west Western Australia for around 30 years.

Across the USA, moderate-to-exceptional drought persisted throughout parts of the south-west desert and eastward through the southern plains, also developing in areas west of the Great Lakes. Drought and anomalous warmth contributed to a record wildfire season for the USA, with more than 3.8 million hectares burned through early December. Drought in the south of Brazil caused significant damage to agriculture in the early part of the year with losses of about 11 per cent estimated for the soybean crop yield alone.

Severe drought conditions also affected China. Millions of hectares of crops were damaged in Sichuan province during summer and in eastern China in autumn. Significant economic losses as well as severe shortages in drinking water were other consequences.

Heavy precipitation and flooding
As the 2005/2006 rainy season was ending, most countries in southern Africa were experiencing satisfactory rainfall during the first quarter of 2006. In northern Africa, floods were recorded in Morocco and Algeria during 2006 causing infrastructure damage and some casualties. Rare heavy rainfall in the Sahara Desert region of Tindouf produced severe flooding in February damaging 70 per cent of food production and displacing 60 000 people. In Bilma, Niger, the highest rainfall since 1923 affected nearly 50 000 people throughout August. In the same month, the most extensive precipitation in 50 years brought significant agricultural losses to the region of Zinder, Niger. Heavy rain also caused devastating floods in Ethiopia in August, claiming more than 600 lives. Some of the worst floods occurred in Dire Dawa and along the swollen Omo River. Again in October and November, the Great Horn of Africa countries experienced heavy rainfall associated with severe flooding. The worst hit areas were in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Somalia is undergoing its worst flooding in recent history; some places have received more than six times their average monthly rainfall and hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. This year’s floods are said to be the worst in 50 years in the Great Horn of Africa region. The heavy rains followed a period of long-lasting drought and the dry ground was unable to soak up large amounts of rainfall.

Heavy rainfall in Bolivia and Equador in the first months of the year caused severe floods and landslides with tens of thousands of people affected. Torrential rainfall in Suriname during early May produced the country’s worst disaster in recent times.

After 500 mm of torrential rainfall during a five-day period in February, a large-scale landslide occurred in Leyte Island, the Philippines with more than 1 000 casualties. Although close to average in total rainfall, the Indian monsoon season brought many heavy rainfall events with the highest rainfall in 24-hours ever recorded in several locations.

Only months after the destructive summer flooding in eastern Europe in 2005, heavy rainfall and snowmelt produced extensive flooding along the River Danube in April and the river reached its highest level in more than a century. Areas of Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia were the hardest hit with hundreds of thousands of hectares inundated and tens of thousands of people affected.

Persistent and heavy rainfall during 10-15 May brought historic flooding to New England (USA), described as the worst in 70 years in some areas. Across the US mid-Atlantic and north-east, exceptionally heavy rainfall occurred in June. Numerous daily and monthly records were set and the rainfall caused widespread flooding which forced the evacuation of some 200 000 people. Vancouver in Canada experienced its wettest month ever in November with 351 mm, nearly twice the average monthly accumulation.

Development of moderate El Niño in late 2006
Conditions in the equatorial Pacific from December 2005 until the first quarter of 2006 showed some patterns typically associated with La Niña events. These however, did not lead to a basin-wide La Niña and, during April, even weak La Niña conditions dissipated. Over the second quarter of 2006, the majority of atmospheric and oceanic indicators reflected neutral conditions but, in August, conditions in the central and western equatorial Pacific started resembling typical early stages of an El Niño event (see WMO Press Release 765). By the end of the year, positive sea-surface temperature anomalies were established across the tropical Pacific basin. The El Niño event is expected by global consensus to continue at least into the first quarter of 2007.

Deadly typhoons in south-east Asia
In the north-west Pacific, 22 tropical cyclones developed (average 27), 14 of which classified as typhoons. Typhoons Chanchu, Prapiroon, Kaemi, Saomai, Xangsane, Cimaron and tropical storm Bilis brought deaths, casualties and severe damage to the region. Landed tropical cyclones caused more than 1 000 fatalities and economic losses of US $ 10 billion in China, which made 2006 the severest year in a decade. Typhoon Durian affected some 1.5 million people in the Philippines in November/December 2006, claiming more than 500 lives with hundreds still missing.

During the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, nine named tropical storms developed (average: ten). Five of the named storms were hurricanes (average six) and two of those were “major” hurricanes (category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale). In the eastern North Pacific 19 named storms developed, which is well above the average of 16; eleven reached hurricane strength of which six attained “major” status.

Twelve tropical cyclones developed in the Australian Basin, two more than the long-term average. Tropical cyclone Larry was the most intense at landfall in Queensland since 1918, destroying 80-90 per cent of the Australian banana crop.

Ozone depletion in the Antarctic and Arctic
On 25 September, the maximum area of the 2006 ozone hole over the Antarctic was recorded at 29.5 million km², slightly larger than the previous record area of 29.4 million km² reached in September 2000. These values are so similar that the ozone holes of these two years could be judged of equal size. The size and persistence of the 2006 ozone hole area with its ozone mass deficit of 40.8 megatonnes (also a record) can be explained by the continuing presence of near-peak levels of ozone-depleting substances in combination with a particularly cold stratospheric winter. Low temperatures in the first part of January prompted a 20 per cent loss in the ozone layer over the Arctic in 2006 (see WMO Press Release 760). Milder temperatures from late January precluded the large ozone loss seen in 2005.

Arctic sea-ice decline continues
The year 2006 continues the pattern of sharply decreasing Arctic sea ice. The average sea-ice extent for the entire month of September was 5.9 million km², the second lowest on record missing the 2005 record by 340 000 km². Including 2006, the September rate of sea ice decline is now approximately -8.59% per decade, or 60 421 km² per year.

Information sources
This preliminary information for 2006 is based on observations up to the end of November from networks of land-based weather stations, ships and buoys. The data are collected and disseminated on a continuing basis by the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of WMO Members. However, the declining state of some observational platforms in some parts of the world is of concern.

It should be noted that, following established practice, WMO’s global temperature analyses are based on two different datasets. One is the combined dataset maintained by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK. The other is maintained by the US Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Results from these two datasets are comparable: both indicate that 2006 is likely to be the sixth warmest year globally.

More extensive updated information will be made available in the annual WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2006, to be published in early March 2007.

This is a joint Press Release issued in collaboration with the Hadley Centre of the Met Office, UK, the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK and in the USA: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Centre, National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service and NOAA’s National Weather Service. Other contributors are WMO Member countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, India, Ireland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mauritius, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) also contributed.

WMO is the United Nations’ authoritative voice on weather, climate and water