Leading Polar Scientst Warns That Australia Is In No Way Ready For What Rapid Changes In Antarctic Will Do To The Nation

[hatrack]

A leading Antarctic scientist has urged the Albanese government to pay closer attention to abrupt changes under way in the southern continent, warning they will affect Australians in ways that are little understood and research into them is drastically underfunded. The head of the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, Prof Matt King, said he found it embarrassing how little was known about the local and global ramifications of changes including a historic drop in floating sea ice cover, the accelerating melting of giant ice sheets and the slowing of a deep ocean current known as the Southern Ocean overturning circulation.

King said they were likely to affect temperature and rainfall patterns across Australia in different ways – changes that could transform communities and affect the viability of some agricultural industries – and hasten sea level rise along the coast.

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“We need a champion in cabinet who can drive forward a multi-decadal agenda in the Antarctic. Perhaps one of the weaknesses is that Antarctica is seen as an environmental problem, but it is an all-of-government problem,” King said. He added: “The Australian economy, and the global economy, is set up on Antarctica being as it has been. We’re moving to a phase where Antarctica won’t be like that any more.”

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Separate papers found the Southern Ocean overturning circulation had slowed by about 30% since the 1990s and could drop off much further by mid-century due to meltwater from the continent’s ice sheets if greenhouse gas emissions were not significantly reduced. Scientists said this could generate a cascade of impacts to push up sea levels, alter weather patterns and starve marine life of a vital source of nutrients. Past changes in ocean circulations have happened over more than 1,000 years. The paper said in this case it could happen within decades, with relatively abrupt consequences for lives and livelihoods. Other research last year suggested accelerated melting of ice shelves extended over the Amundsen Sea in west Antarctica was locked in and beyond human control for the rest of this century, even if emissions were significantly reduced.

King said scientists studying these changes and their consequences were relying on scientific models that were incomplete for parts of west Antarctica “and even more so for the rest of the continent”. “There is so much we don’t know … We don’t know the shape of the bedrock under the ice that governs how the ice retreats and what impact the retreat has,” he said. “We have almost no data on the continental shelf.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/21/antarctica-melting-ice-shelf-sea-cover-professor-matt-king

[Irish_Dem]

1. 100% certain that most first world countries have a good idea what is going to happen.

In regard to climate change.

1. They know it is going to cost a great deal of money to prevent and repair damage caused by climate change.
2. There is not enough public interest right now to spend huge amounts of money on prevention.
3. Some of the damage coming is not preventable.
4. It appears the governments are going to wait until the damage happens and try to repair damage as it occurs.
5. Or begin to move people away from the worst of it.
6. The public will begin to understand that most of the damage cannot be repaired.

[Think. Again.]

2. I can only hope...

...that most first world countries will begin to understand that what could happen, according to science and scientists, will be a lot worse than just the major inconveniences you have described.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Make no mistake, I am not referring to just "inconveniences."

I am taking about changes to the planet and the humans on it that are irreversible, life altering and
will change how we live and die.