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Study shows risks have climbed steadily since 1980, and the number of people in danger will grow to 48% by 2100 even if emissions are drastically reduced

• South-west heat wave: tell us how you’re keeping cool

Nearly a third of the world’s population is now exposed to climatic conditions that produce deadly heatwaves, as the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere makes it “almost inevitable” that vast areas of the planet will face rising fatalities from high temperatures, new research has found.

Climate change has escalated the heatwave risk across the globe, the study states, with nearly half of the world’s population set to suffer periods of deadly heat by the end of the century even if greenhouse gases are radically cut.

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Any Brexit changes to the UK's wildlife laws will increase - not reduce - environmental protection, Michael Gove has pledged.

The release of the Finkel report has refocused national attention on climate change, and how we know it’s happening.

On a Q&A episode following the report’s release, Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said we’ve seen:

… worsening heatwaves, hot days doubling in Australia in the last 50 years.

Excerpt from Q&A, June 12, 2017. Quote begins at 2:12.

Her comment provides the perfect opportunity to revisit exactly what the research says on heatwaves and hot days as Australia’s climate warms.

Examining the evidence

When asked for sources to support McKenzie’s assertion, a Climate Council spokesperson said:

Climate change is making hot days and heatwaves more frequent and more severe. Since 1950 the annual number of record hot days across Australia has more than doubled and the mean temperature has increased by about 1°C from 1910.

Specifically, there has been an increase of 0.2 days/year since 1957 which means, on average, that there are almost 12 more days per year over 35°C.

You can read full response from the Climate Council here.

How do we define ‘heatwaves’?

Internationally, organisations use different definitions for heatwaves.

In Australia, the most commonly used definition (and the one used by the Climate Council) is from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It provided the first national definition of a heatwave in January 2014, describing it as:

A period of at least three days where the combined effect of excess heat and heat stress is unusual with respect to the local climate. Both maximum and minimum temperatures are used in this assessment.

The BOM uses a metric called the “excess heat factor” to decide what heat is “unusual”. It combines the average temperature over three days with the average temperature for a given location and time of year; and how the three day average temperature compares to temperatures over the last 30 days.

We can also characterise heatwaves by looking at their their intensity, frequency and duration.

Researchers, including Australian climate scientist Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, are trying to standardise the definitions of “heatwaves” and “hot days” and create a framework that allows for more in-depth studies of these events.

Are heatwaves ‘worsening’?

There’s not a large body of research against which to test this claim. But the research we do have suggests there has been an observable increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in Australia. Research published in 2013 found a trend towards more heat waves in Australia between 1951 and 2008.

A review paper published in 2016 assessed evidence from multiple studies and found that heatwaves are becoming more intense and more frequent for the majority of Australia.

The following chart shows heatwave days per decade from 1950 to 2013, highlighting a trend toward more heatwave days in Australia over time:

We’ve seen a trend towards more heatwave days over Australia. Trends are shown for 1950-2013 in units of heatwave days per decade. Stippling indicates statistical significance at the 5% level. Adapted from Perkins-Kirkpatrick et al. (2017) Have hot days ‘doubled’ in the last 50 years?

While the number of “hot days” (as defined by the BOM) has not doubled over the last 50 years, as McKenzie said, the number of “record hot days” certainly has. “Record hot days” are days when the maximum temperature sets a new record high.

Given that McKenzie made her statement on a fast paced live TV show, it’s reasonable to assume she was referring to the latter. Let’s look at both figures.

The BOM defines “hot days” as days with a maximum temperature higher than 35°C. The BOM data show there were more hot days in Australia in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 than in any of the 50 years from 1966 to 2016 (the last year for which data are available).

In fact, there were more hot days in the years 2013-2016 than in any other year as far back as 1910. If we compare the decades 1966-76 and 2006-16, we see a 27% increase in the number of hot days.

The following map shows the trend in the number of days per year above 35 °C from 1957–2015: Bureau of Meteorology

A 2010 Bureau of Meteorology/CSIRO report found record hot days had more than doubled between 1960 and 2010. That data was collected from the highest-quality weather stations across Australia.

Number of record hot day maximums at Australian climate reference stations, 1960-2010. Bureau of Meteorology 2010 Number of days in each year where the Australian area-averaged daily mean temperature is extreme. Extreme days are those above the 99th percentile of each month from the years 1910-2015. Bureau of Meteorology Why are heatwaves worsening, and record hot days doubling?

The trend in rising average temperatures in Australia in the second half of the 20th century is likely to have been largely caused by human-induced climate change.

Recent record hot summers and significant heatwaves were also made much more likely by humans’ effect on the climate.

The human influence on Australian summer temperatures has increased and we can expect more frequent hot summers and heatwaves as the Earth continues to warm.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie, speaking on Q&A. Q&A

In relation to this article responding to Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie’s claim that heatwaves are “worsening” and “hot days” have doubled in Australia in the last 50 years, a spokesperson for the Climate Council gave the following responses. Questions from The Conversation are in bold.

Could you please provide a source, or sources, to support Ms McKenzie’s statement that heatwaves are “worsening” and hot days have doubled in the last 50 years?

Climate change is making hot days and heatwaves more frequent and more severe. Since 1950 the annual number of record hot days across Australia has more than doubled and the mean temperature has increased by about 1°C from 1910.

Specifically, there has been an increase of 0.2 days/year since 1957 which means, on average, that there are almost 12 more days per year over 35°C.

What did Ms McKenzie mean by the terms “heatwaves” and “hot days”?

Hot days – the number of hot days, defined as days with maximum temperatures greater than 35°C.

Heatwaves – three days or more of high maximum and minimum temperatures that is unusual for that location.

Furthermore, heatwaves have several significant characteristics. These include (i) frequency characteristics, such as the number of heatwave days and the annual number of summer heatwave events; (ii) duration characteristics, such as the length of the longest heatwave in a season; (iii) intensity characteristics, such as the average excess temperature expected during a heatwave and the hottest day of a heatwave; and (iv) timing characteristics, including the occurrence of the first heatwave event in a season.

Is there any other comment you would like us to include in the article?

Climate change – driven largely by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from the burning of coal, oil and gas – is increasing temperatures and cranking up the intensity of extreme weather events globally and in Australia.

The accumulating energy in the atmosphere is affecting all extreme weather events. Climate change is driving global warming at a rate 170 times faster than the baseline rate over the past 7,000 years.

Temperature records tumbled yet again during Australia’s ‘Angry Summer’ of 2016/17. In just 90 days, more than 205 records were broken around Australia.

Heatwaves and hot days scorched the major population centres of Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney, as well as the rural and regional heartlands of eastern Australia. The most severe heatwave of this Angry Summer began around January 31 and continued until February 12, with the highest temperatures recorded from February 9-12.

This heatwave was made twice as likely to occur because of climate change, while the extreme heat in New South Wales over the entire summer season was at least 50 times as likely to occur because of climate change.

The severe heatwave of February 2017 that spread across much of Australia’s south, east and interior caused issues for the South Australian and New South Wales energy systems. In New South Wales around 3,000MW of coal and gas capacity was not available when needed in the heatwave (roughly the equivalent of two Hazelwood Power Stations).

In South Australia, 40,000 people were left without power for about half an hour in the early evening while temperatures were over 40°C. This heatwave highlights the vulnerability of our energy systems to extreme weather.

Read the article here.

Over the next few years, Sango Wildlife Conservancy in Zimbabwe is donating 6,000 animals to rewild a war-torn park across the border in Mozambique. Sango’s owner says it couldn’t have happened without revenue from big-spending trophy hunters.

Call it Noah’s Ark on lorries: on Sunday, dozens of trucks rolled over the Zimbabwe savanna carrying elephants, giraffe, African buffalo, zebras, and numerous other large iconic mammals. Driving over 600 kilometers of dusty roadway, the trucks will be delivering their wild loads to a new home: Zinave National Park in Mozambique. The animals are a donation from Mozambique’s Sango Wildlife Conservancy – a donation that owner, Wilfried Pabst, says wouldn’t be possible without funds from controversial trophy hunting.

“In remote places and countries with a weak tourism industry and a high unemployment rate, it is very difficult – or almost impossible – to run a conservancy like Sango without income from sustainable utilization,” Pabst said.

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Members of the W&J Traditional Owners Council outside the Federal Court. W&J Council

The Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council (W&J) is involved in a remarkable struggle to assert their Indigenous rights in opposition to the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine. Despite the company’s board-level decision to proceed, the mine has not cleared all legal hurdles.

W&J’s efforts – recognised globally as a leading Indigenous rights campaign – are challenging Australia’s native title system, and the notion that compliance with industrial projects is the pathway to development for Indigenous people.

The W&J struggle has largely focused on contesting Adani’s efforts to secure an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (Ilua) – the consent of the traditional owners for the mine to proceed. The Ilua would let Adani undertake all works associated with the project, and secure a 2,750 hectare area for critical infrastructure related to mine operations, including an airstrip, workers village, and washing plant.

While the National Native Title Tribunal authorised the Queensland Government to approve the mining leases for Adani in 2016 without the consent of the W&J, this is subject to ongoing legal challenge. Without an Ilua, there is no legal basis to build the infrastructure. In this scenario, the only option would be the compulsory acquisition of land by the state – an unprecedented move in the history of native title that would privilege mining interests above the wishes of traditional owners.

We are undertaking a research project in collaboration with the W&J and Australian Lawyers for Human Rights. The W&J have provided us with access to their files, and we have conducted preliminary analysis of the political, social and economic context of their campaign.

Changing the rules

Earlier this week both houses of Parliament passed amendments to annul the effects of a February 2017 Federal Court full bench decision that confirmed the Native Title Act required all registered native title claimants to sign an Ilua. This overturned a previous decision made by a single judge, which allowed that one signature was sufficient, as long as an Ilua had been approved by the claim group.

The W&J had moved quickly, on the basis of the court decision, to have Adani’s claimed deal struck out. But the Federal Government moved swiftly too, less than two weeks later placing amendments before Parliament that removed the W&J Council’s option to annul.

These amendments, while validating existing Iluas that could have been brought into question, are also widely acknowledged as a fix for Adani. In April, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reassured senior Adani executives in India that the native title situation would be fixed.

However, the future of the Ilua and Adani’s mine is far from secure. W&J legal action challenging Adani’s Ilua process on several grounds is set for hearing in the Federal Court in March 2018.

The Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has affirmed the question mark over the agreement, saying:

It is not my understanding that this bill will provide some kind of removal of a final legal hurdle for the Adani mine […] they [the W&J] have made clear that there are some very serious allegations of fraud that have been made against Adani.

In a further recent twist, Wangan and Jagalingou representative Craig Dallen, who previously signed Adani’s Ilua documents, has withdrawn his support in an affidavit. He’s also raised doubts about the meeting processes that were used to construct the deal.

In evidence submitted to the Federal Court, the W&J argue the attendance record at the meeting organised and paid for by Adani shows that many attendees were not present at prior native title group authorisation meetings, and are not Wangan and Jagalingou claimants.

The lure of Iluas

Iluas are very hard for Indigenous people to resist. The native title regime provides very limited protection, such that Indigenous people are often forced to take a poor Ilua deal, rather than risk ending up with nothing at the National Native Title Tribunal.

While Adani has filed for registration of an Ilua, the W&J calls it a “sham”, asserting that the Wangan and Jagalingou people have rejected a deal with Adani on three separate occasions since 2012.

The limitations of Iluas for Indigenous people partly arise because native title is a highly contingent and weak form of title. It does not apply where Indigenous observance of custom has been disrupted. However the colonial pattern of frontier violence and policies such as assimilation sought, by design, to directly eliminate custom.

Native title can also be extinguished, and can only be claimed in certain areas where other legal title (such as freehold) does not exist. Rights granted under native title are also typically non-exclusive, giving little opportunity to control access to land or its use.

While the W&J are making use of the legal avenues available to them through the native title process, they are also asserting their rights apart from it. Their legal strategy is a rejection of what they see as a constrained native title system, in which Indigenous peoples’ agreement or acquiescence to mining is the norm.

Instead, the W&J are part of a growing international Indigenous rights movement that firmly centres Indigenous peoples’ interests in struggles for restitution and a sustainable future for their people. They stand on their right to free, prior and informed consent, reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

More fundamentally, though, the W&J stress that they are custodians of country, and are acting in accordance with Aboriginal law in their resistance to the Carmichael mine. This is contrary to Marcia Langton’s recent assertion that opposition to Adani’s mine is driven by a minority of Indigenous people at the behest of the greens.

This article is based upon a recently released report, Unfinished Business: Adani, the State, and the Indigenous Rights Struggle of the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council.

Morgan Brigg receives funding from through the Global Change Institute’s Flagship Program at The University of Queensland.

John Quiggin receives funding from the Global Change Institute’s Flagship Program at The University of Queensland. He is a consultant for Farmers for Climate Action and has worked for other environmental organisations on a voluntary basis. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council, and was formerly a Member of the Climate Change Authority

Kristen Lyons receives funding from the Global Change Institute’s Flagship Program at The University of Queensland. She is a research fellow with the Oakland Institute and is a member of the Australian Greens.

Internationally renowned geographer and conservation ecologist, Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick AM, is the recipient of the Australian Heritage Council’s 2017 Sharon Sullivan National Heritage Award.

In the past week, future prices fell again in all states. The downtrend is now firmly established and prices in the out years are significantly lower than in 2018. That’s particularly noticeable in Victoria.

Billed as a "once in a generation" opportunity to bring Australia's energy market into the 21st Century, the Finkel Review is rapidly being reduced to absurdist arguments about the lights going out – by the very government that commissioned it. So much for Grid 2.0.

Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent As if wanting us to appreciate more fully the weird loveliness of its song, the nightjar flew towards us

We found the nightjar on the edge of a young conifer plantation, just before 10pm. The weather rumbled ominously in the background as dusk settled around us, the trees soughing and shushing in the breeze. Willow warblers carolled in the canopy and a fat woodcock roded over.

Luke lit a cigarette, I slapped at midges. We saw the nightjar before we heard him (which is unusual). Just enough light to see white wing patches, plumage like wave ripples on sand. He flew over, tentative, circling, standing on the handle of his tail and clapping his wings a few times, before arrowing off into the trees.

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Scott Pruitt's official schedule shows that his door remains open to fossil fuel industry, and BHP has been among those thanking him for his "leadership".

The Independent Review of the Water Trigger Legislation and Post Implementation Review were tabled in Parliament today.

It's not clear that there is a sufficient reward to justify much new investment in storage and firming capacity, given the presence of Snowy, Tas Hydro, and existing gas and coal generation.

For the first time, wind and solar exceeded 10% of total electricity generation in the US for the month of March.

Volunteers help unearth Aboriginal rock art in the Blue Mountains; English-born chef Tim Burn calls the outback town of Tibooburra home; and 'chicken couture' for a brood of featherless chooks.

Forestry researchers condemn attempts to change the way carbon from trees is counted in Europe.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 21 June 1917

Surrey
The soil responds quickly now to every genial touch. Meadows and clover fields which, after they had been cut and the hay gathered, appeared brown and sere two days ago were this morning, after a spell of rain, as green almost as in spring. The foot sank among rich young leaves and blades along the ditch side below, where wild pink roses have opened as if by some quick stroke or call. On the very top of flowering brambles yellowhammers perched, preening their feathers, and started a little song the last note of which drew out longer than the others. There was a pause and a spell of silence until the song was run through again, the heads of the birds bobbing yellow in the sunshine all the while.

With a rising wind at evening, grey clouds, almost black, came sweeping up the down, scattering the white fruit of dandelions. In the distance they seemed heavy and low enough to envelop you in darkness, but presently it was nothing but a slightly damp flicker wafting across your face. Higher the sky was a clear blue, with long thin flecks depending, which scarcely moved, and in the middle distance swifts circling, diving, now going higher with a tireless flutter of wings, then gliding as they pleased without apparent sign of any kind of power. No matter which way you turn now there are always swifts, and within a few minutes a pair will come down with sharp but sweet cries as they dash above and around. Another and yet another two or three will join them, until, waywardly, all shoot up towards the sky again. So many are they that a lark, strong as his singing is, seems lonely.

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With its unusual name and even more unusual habits, the hoatzin is a clear frontrunner for the title of the world’s most bizarre bird

We left Romero Rainforest Lodge just before sunrise, heading down the Manú River and into the unknown. The sickly-sweet scent of uvos – a mango-like fruit – wafted across the murky waters, hanging heavy in the humid air.

As dawn broke, birds started to appear out of nowhere. Flocks of sand-coloured nighthawks lived up to their name, hawking acrobatically over the surface of the water to seize unseen insects with their broad bills. As the sky began to lighten, they were joined by black skimmers: elegant, tern-like birds whose huge bill is longer at the bottom than the top, as we could see when one kept pace with our speedboat. Overhead, pairs of gaudy blue-and-yellow macaws flew high over the rainforest, as if in slow motion.

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Giant northern cockroaches are surprisingly caring parents. Urasimaru/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

To most people, cockroaches are abhorrent, disease-ridden pests, scuttling under the fridge when you go to the kitchen for a midnight snack. But those who know cockroaches well understand that they can be very caring creatures.

There are about 5,000 named cockroaches, and in a small minority of species mothers look after their babies (nymphs), and feed and care for them in a protective burrow. A good example is the Australian giant burrowing cockroach (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), which lives mainly in northern Queensland.

Around 20 baby cockroaches live with their mother for 5-6 months, and she drags leaves collected from the soil surface down into the burrow for food. If you’re so inclined, you can buy a pair of adult giant burrowing cockroaches as pets for around A$150.00, and see their maternal behaviour for yourself.

Macropanesthia rhinoceros, Frantisek Vecernik. Pinterest

Some cockroach mothers are even more caring, with elaborate parenting behaviours to look after their babies. The mother wood-burrowing cockroach (Cryptocercus) from North America lays its eggs in a nest formed in a rotting log.

Mum and dad wood roach then live in the nest with 20 or so nymphs for three years or more. The parents defend, extend and clean the gallery, feeding the young by regurgitating food (much like many birds do) and with specialised fluids produced by glands in their gut. The babies return the favour, spending almost 10% of their time grooming the adults.

These cockroaches have an unusual diet: they digest the cellulose in wood with the help of specialised gut microbes. The nymphs don’t have these microbes when they are born, but obtain them by feeding on the regurgitated contents of their parents’ stomachs. Eventually the teenage cockroaches leave the parental nest to form their own nests.

Cryptocercus adult (dark brown) and nymph (light brown) from the eastern US. David Maddison

Until recently, maternal care in cockroaches was considered an evolutionary oddity. A few other insect groups have similar behaviour, but it was considered to be just one of a range of (often bizarre) strategies that insects have evolved to increase the survival chances of their offspring.

However, as our understanding of insect relationships has increased in recent years, maternal care in cockroaches is now seen not as a strange evolutionary dead end, but an important stepping stone in the development of the huge, complex and well-ordered societies formed by other insect species. This realisation is partly down to the fact that we now know termites evolved from cockroaches. This was first discovered in 2000 by a team led by a laboratory at the University of Sydney, and has been confirmed numerous times since then.

Termite time

Termites are known as Isoptera to entomologists – and never as “white ants” because termites bear no close relation to true ants at all.

As it happens, some of the earliest-evolved groups of termites live in Australia. The giant northern termite (Mastotermes darwiniensis) is found only in Australia, north of the tropic of Capricorn. They show similar maternal care to the wood roach in north America, but have extended this behaviour even further.

These termites live in colonies that number in the thousands or millions. At the centre of the colony is a mother (queen), and father (king), and these are responsible for reproduction. A queen giant termite can lay millions of eggs in its lifetime? and live for decades. Giant northern termites live in a nest underground, or inside rotting wood, and because they almost never see the sunshine they have become pale (hence the erroneous term “white ant”).

However small and pale, these termites can be a major agricultural pest in northern Australia because they consume almost anything organic, including living and dead plants, and trees, rubber, leather - even plastic. They digest cellulose from plant material using specialised gut microbes, much like wood roaches do.

Giant northern termite, Mastotermes darwiniensis, worker caste. scienceimage.csiro.au

How do giant northern termite colonies containing thousands or millions of individuals differ from the 20 nymphs of the wood roach? The first and most obvious difference is that the termite colony contains several types of individuals: the reproductive kings and queens; the soldiers who defend the nest; and the workers who clean and excavate the next, carry out running repairs, and gather food.

These different types (castes) have different anatomies, each tailored to their job. In contrast, all wood roaches look the same, and the nymphs leave the parental nest, find a partner and begin their own little families.

The second major difference is that the king and queen termite outlive their children (the soldiers and workers) many times over, and as a result their offspring never leave home. This in turn begs the question: what makes the workers and soldiers forego reproduction and spend all their lives in the colony?

The king and queen produce biological signalling chemicals called pheromones, which are transferred to the workers that feed on the king and queen’s excretions. In essence, the parents are feeding their young a chemical that makes them stay at home and help mum and dad with the housework.

This is a neat, self-regulating system: if mum or dad dies, the chemical isn’t produced and some of the youngsters begin reproducing for themselves.

It is unusual for any animal to surrender the opportunity to propagate its own genes, and there must be a very good evolutionary reason for it. Highly cooperative behaviour is thought to develop when the benefits of living together outweigh the benefits of building or finding your own nest.

Perhaps we can even think of termites as cockroaches that love their babies a little bit too much.

David Yeates receives funding from CSIRO, The Australian Biological Resources Study, the US National Science Foundation, and holds the Schlinger endowed research position at the Australian National Insect Collection.

Thanks to new legislation, NOAA will be able to boost its ability to predict major weather-related events, such as hurricanes, droughts, floods and wildfires – and improved forecasts could have significant business impacts

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