a bit warm down under

[Guest guest]

Published on Sunday, February 1, 2009 by The Independent/UK

Parched: Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks In

by Geoffrey Lean and Kathy Marks

 

Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks

are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen

hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever

heatwave.

 

A man sunbathes on rocks at a beach in Melbourne January 31, 2009.

(Reuter/Mick Tsikas)On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43C

(109.4F) on a third successive day for the first time on record, while

even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row,

as temperatures reached 42.2C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a

staggering 45.6C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected

to be broken this week.

 

Ministers are blaming the heat - which follows a record drought - on

global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon

dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to

implode under the impact of climate change.

 

At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos

ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded,

shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in

lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million

homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away

from hospitals.

 

More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees

in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at

one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in

the freezer.

 

" All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what

scientists told us would happen, " said climate change minister Penny

Wong.

 

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as

highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth

Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its

ecosystems as " potentially the most fragile " on earth in the face of

the threat.

 

Many factors put Australia especially at risk. Its climate is already

hot, dry and variable. Its vulnerable agriculture plays an unusually

important part in the economy. And most people and industry are

concentrated on the coast, making it vulnerable to the rising seas and

ferocious storms that come with a warmer world.

 

Most of the south of the country is gripped by unprecedented 12-year

drought. The Australian Alps have had their driest three years ever,

and the water from the vast Murray-Darling river system now fails to

reach the sea 40 per cent of the time. Harvests have fallen sharply.

 

It will get worse as global warming increases. Even modest temperature

rises, now seen as unavoidable, are expected to increase drought by 70

per cent in New South Wales, cut Melbourne's water supplies by more

than a third, and dry up the Murray-Darling system by another 25 per

cent.

 

As Professor David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, said last

week: " The heat is unusual, but it will become much more like the

normal experience in 10 to 20 years. "