Category Archives: marine sciences

Snow on snow: vanishing glacial ice

Winter’s white blanket of snow is becoming rarer. We must learn to appreciate it. There could be no better description of how our planet begins its descent into an ice age than Christina Rossetti’s haunting 1872 Christmas carol: “Snow on … Continue reading

Posted in Antarctic, carbon emissions and targets, changes to climate, climate sensitivity, glaciology, marine sciences, modelling, palaeoclimatology, science, sea level | Comments Off on Snow on snow: vanishing glacial ice

Beneath the waves, a disaster in the making

Marine heatwaves are devastating our coastal ecosystems like nothing we’ve ever seen. “The great mother of life” was how Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 environmental classic Silent Spring, described the sea. Today the great mother of life is ailing, … Continue reading

Posted in Australian politics, biodiversity, biological resources, carbon emissions and targets, changes to climate, economic threat from climate, extreme events, fossil fuels, future climate, marine organisms, marine sciences, oceanography, science | Comments Off on Beneath the waves, a disaster in the making

The awesome challenge of coastal inundation

A significant increase in Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level rise raises the prospect of a 1 metre to 1.8 metre sea level rise within a human lifetime. That should be raising alarm bells among authorities and planners. A giant is stirring to … Continue reading

Posted in Antarctic, carbon emissions and targets, changes to climate, climate politics, climate system, coastal management, economic threat from climate, glaciology, governance, ice, local government, marine sciences, modelling, oceanography, planning, science, sea level, Tasmanian politics, temperature | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The awesome challenge of coastal inundation