Entries and nominations are now invited for the Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change prize, one of 20 prizes on offer in this year’s competition and one of only two in the category of Science Leadership!

Sponsored by the British Council, the Eureka Prize for Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change is awarded to a young Australian aged 21 - 30 for scientific or technological leadership in responding to the challenges that threaten our environment and our climate.

The prize is intended to benefit outstanding young people who have demonstrated:

• scientific or technological leadership which aims to improve the environment or reduce the impact of climate change, and
• the potential to accelerate quickly into leadership positions in fields relevant to this prize.

The winner will receive a $10,000 study tour to the United Kingdom, organised by the British Council.

Entries close 2 May 2008

For further information on the prize, judging criteria, and how to enter, go to australianmuseum.net.au/eureka or email eureka@austmus.gov.au

Water, rivers and climate change are inextricably linked, and are ringing warning bells across the world. More than ever before, the global water situation is uniting people in hardship, with billions being spent to protect water supplies, livelihoods and, ultimately, lives.

In Australia, one of the driest continents, a growing population and drying climate is challenging environmental scientists, water managers and politicians to find short and long-term solutions to the growing crisis. And answers are not cheap or easy, often being social problems that require political action.

The statistics alone are frightening. Of the water available for Australians to use, one quarter of the rivers and lakes are already used for drinking, industry and agriculture, and one third of underground water is being pumped to the surface and used for the same purposes.

If you ask Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, about climate change, the outlook is bleak. By 2030 rainfall on the major capitals (except Hobart) could drop by 15 per cent. According to the 2001 report, Climate Change Projections for Australia, Perth could loose up to 20 per cent of rainfall. At the same time, rising temperatures will increase evaporation, further reducing water supplies in dams, rivers and reservoirs.
In another recent scientific report by the same agency, which examines water price implications for each of Australia’s main cities and regions in 25 years’ time, the real price of water could skyrocket.

The 2006 report, Without Water: The economics of supplying water to 5 million more Australians, says if governments do not act to expand water trading and access ‘new’ sources of water such as building desalination plants, establishing large sewage recycling schemes and making use of storm water, the price of water would increase by between five and ten times in large cities to manage demand.

Internationally, the situation is not much better, and in many areas is far worse. The United Nations describes the global water situation as a “crisis… essentially caused by the way in which we mismanage water.” The U.N. is so concerned about water, it has named 2005 to 2015 as the Decade of Water.

More than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by the year 2025 if the world continues consuming water at the same rate, the United Nations has warned in its annual World Water Assessment Program report.

The looming crisis is being blamed on mismanagement of existing water resources, population growth and changing weather patterns. The areas most at risk from the growing water scarcity are in semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

“Even where supplies are sufficient or plentiful, they are increasingly at risk from pollution and rising demand,” says U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Extremes in water supply deliver unacceptable shocks to the developing world, explains World Bank Senior Water Advisor, David Grey. “Monsoons, droughts, depleted groundwater resources, and typhoons devastate poor countries because they’re in too deep a hole economically to reduce their risk,” he says.

Grey, soon to visit Australia as a keynote speaker for the International Riversymposium, sees a strong link between the sophistication of a country’s water management and its economic health. He says investors are avoiding countries with unpredictable food production, health problems related to poor water quality, and unreliable electricity supplies.

“Investment doesn’t flow to places where catastrophic water events cause huge social and economic problems and large-scale losses of life,” says Grey.

Like many international water experts, Grey believes Australia must take a lead role with international assistance, training and capacity building for river management, particularly in the Asian Pacific region. He’s impressed by organisations such as the International Riverfoundation which has set up ‘twinning’ programs to help developing countries better manage their river catchments.

Partnerships and community action are critical to managing water and protecting rivers. Many will be highlighted at the coming International Riversymposium in Brisbane in September.

The theme, ‘Managing rivers with climate change and expanding populations’ will investigate the challenge of meeting human needs for water under changing climatic conditions. It’s an opportunity for hundreds of people to share ideas, case studies and examples on how to tackle threats to rivers and catchments.

“Local communities can do amazing things,” says Riversymposium chair Professor Paul Greenfield of the University of Queensland. “There are many positive stories showing how science, public policy and community action are addressing river and global warming issues.”

“For example, the Bulimba Creek Catchment Association, typical of many local conservation groups throughout Australia, has an outstanding record of revegetating bushland and improving water quality in a network of Brisbane creeks,” says Professor Greenfield.

“The association coordinates Waterwatch, supports 23 local Bushcare groups, provides training programs to volunteers, and involves students and community groups in practical conservation projects.”

“Since 1999, the group has involved the community in rehabilitating 46 sites within the catchment, and four sites outside it with support from Landcare, the Natural Heritage Trust and local leaders.”

Each year, the symposium highlights new international and Australian industry practices, government regulations, technology and community education programs to sustain river water supply and quality. The four-day event also includes the prestigious Thiess International and National Riverprize.

The prize, regarded as the ‘Noble prize for saving rivers’, recognises outstanding achievements in river conservation and management. There are overseas nominations from Israel, U.S.A., Kyrgyzstan, China, and Canada vying for the $225,000 Thiess International Riverprize. There are also nominations from Australia competing for the $75,000 Thiess National Riverprize.

While Australia may not yet be experiencing some of the more dramatic and life threatening situations as many river systems overseas, the clock is ticking, particularly in relation to the current drought and low levels in large dams that supply water to major population centres.

The 9th International Riversymposium will be held at Brisbane’s Convention & Exhibition Centre from 4 -7September as part of the city’s annual Riverfestival. Other activities include Riverfire, Riverfeast and post-symposium study tours.

Regular updates on international river issues, such as water scarcity, estuary flows, wastewater treatment, community consultation, legal frameworks, damming rivers and water policy, will be published in free e-newsletters. For more information please visit the following websites:

www.riversymposium.com

www.riverfestival.com.au

This article was written by

Don Alcock
International Riversymposium Media

The year 2005 was the warmest year in over a century, according to NASA scientists studying temperature data from around the world.

Climatologists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City noted that the highest global annual average surface temperature in more than a century was recorded in their analysis for the 2005 calendar year.

Some other research groups that study climate change rank 2005 as the second warmest year, based on comparisons through November. The primary difference among the analyses, according to the NASA scientists, is the inclusion of the Arctic in the NASA analysis. Although there are few weather stations in the Arctic, the available data indicate that 2005 was unusually warm in the Arctic.

In order to figure out whether the Earth is cooling or warming, the scientists use temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982, and data from ships for earlier years.

Previously, the warmest year of the century was 1998, when a strong El Nino, a warm water event in the eastern Pacific Ocean, added warmth to global temperatures. However, what’s significant, regardless of whether 2005 is first or second warmest, is that global warmth has returned to about the level of 1998 without the help of an El Nino.

The result indicates that a strong underlying warming trend is continuing. Global warming since the middle 1970s is now about 0.6 degrees Celsius (C) or about 1 degree Fahrenheit (F). Total warming in the past century is about 0.8° C or about 1.4° F.

“The five warmest years over the last century occurred in the last eight years,” said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS. They stack up as follows: the warmest was 2005, then 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed by 0.6° C or 1.08° F. Over the past 100 years, it has warmed by 0.8° C or 1.44° F.

Current warmth seems to be occurring nearly everywhere at the same time and is largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the last 50 years, the largest annual and seasonal warmings have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Because these areas are remote and far away from major cities, it is clear to climatologists that the warming is not due to the influence of pollution from urban areas.

Original press release: 2005 Warmest Year in Over a Century (NASA)

High-level international talks have begun in Sydney about the best way to tackle global warming.

Senior officials and ministers from Australia, Japan, the United States, China, South Korea and India are taking part in the two-day Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate meeting (AP6).

Read the full article: Summit open for business (The Age)

Related article: Climate change bloc may grow to rival Kyoto (Sydney Morning Herald)

Today at 21.00 CEST Mr Yuri Bakhvalov, First Deputy Director General of the Khrunichev Space Centre on behalf of the Russian State Commission officially confirmed that the launch of CryoSat ended in a failure due to an anomaly in the launch sequence and expressed his regret to ESA and all partners involved.

Preliminary analysis of the telemetry data indicates that the first stage performed nominally. The second stage performed nominally until main engine cut-off was to occur. Due to a missing command from the onboard flight control system the main engine continued to operate until depletion of the remaining fuel.

As a consequence, the separation of the second stage from upper stage did not occur. Thus, the combined stack of the two stages and the CryoSat satellite fell into the nominal drop zone north of Greenland close to the North Pole into high seas with no consequences to populated areas.

An investigating commission by the Russian State authorities has been established to further analyze the reasons for the failure, results are expected within the next weeks. This commission will work in close cooperation with a failure investigation board consisting of Eurockot, ESA and Khrunichev representatives.

This information is released at the same time by Eurockot and ESA.

Original press release: CryoSat Mission lost due to launch failure (ESA) 

Open University researchers have uncovered startling new evidence about an extreme period of a sudden, fatal dose of global warming some 180 million years ago during the time of the dinosaurs. The scientists’ findings could provide vital clues about climate change happening today and in the future.

The OU Department of Earth Sciences team, PhD student Dave Kemp and supervisors Drs. Angela Coe and Anthony Cohen, along with Dr. Lorenz Schwark of the University of Cologne, discovered evidence suggesting that vast amounts of methane gas were released to the atmosphere in three massive ‘methane burps’ or pulses. The addition of methane, a greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere had a severe impact on the environment, warming Earth about 10 C, and resulting in the extinction of a large number of species on land and in the oceans.

Dr Angela Coe says: “We’ve known about this event for a few years through earlier work by our team and others, but there’s been a great deal of uncertainty about its precise size, duration, and underlying cause. What our present study shows is that this methane release was not just one event, but 3 consecutive pulses. Importantly, our data demonstrate that each individual pulse was very rapid. Also, whilst the methane release was very quick, we’ve found that the recovery took much longer, occurring over a few hundred thousand years”.

The methane came from gas hydrate, a frozen mixture of water and methane found in huge quantities on the seabed. This hydrate suddenly melted, allowing the methane to escape. The OU researchers based their findings on geochemical analyses of mudrocks that are preserved along the Yorkshire coast near Whitby, UK, and date from the Jurassic Period of geological time.

Dave Kemp, whose PhD is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), says: “The methane was released because slight wobbles in the Earth’s orbit periodically bring our planet closer to the Sun, warming the oceans sufficiently to melt the vast reserves of hydrate. We believe that this effect was compounded by warming from greenhouse gases from volcanoes. After the methane was released into the atmosphere from the seabed it reacted rapidly with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is also a powerful greenhouse gas that persists in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years, and it was this gas which caused such a massive global warming effect”.

Dr Anthony Cohen adds: “One of the most important aspects of the study is that it provides an accurate timescale for how the Earth, and life, reacted to a sudden increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Today we are releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels. It is possible that the rate at which carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere now actually outstrips the rate at which it was added 180 million years ago. Given that the effects were so devastating then, it is extremely important to understand the details of past events in order to better comprehend present-day climate change. With this information, we are better informed about what action needs to be taken to mitigate or avoid some of the potential detrimental future effects”.

Original press release: Earth’s Wobble Burps (NASA - Open University)