Sea Levels Along Australia's Northern Territories Rising At 4X Rate Of Global Average

[hatrack]

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But there has been trouble in paradise. As the CSIRO predicts big rises in temperature over the next 30 years, Stephen Garnett, a professor of tropical knowledge at Charles Darwin University, warns that over the past decade the sea levels on our northern coast have been rising at four times the global average, partly in response to the shape of the Timor Sea towards New Guinea; such shallower seas are more prone to expansion through heat.

The question: how much of a thermal increase can tropical birds, or mammals for that matter, stand? Science cannot offer a readymade answer because it is unethical to experimentally heat up our wildlife. Boiling feathers might only be the beginning, however. "As sea levels rise, the big spectacles will go," Garnett predicts. "The wetlands of Kakadu will no longer be much of a tourist attraction. They will be invaded by sea salt. There's some evidence that it is already occurring." Garnett believes global warming will herald stronger and more frequent cyclones and, as habitats change, life forms will fight for space or even existence.

Consider the chestnut rail, a secretive bird whose ginger body and green beak make it prettier than it sounds - a raucous "wack waka, wah-wah", alternated with grunts - and once common on Marchinbar Island, about 640 kilometres north-east of Darwin. Since Cyclone Monica swept through, in April last year, the chestnut rail has been nowhere to be seen on the island.

And, while Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal hunting of magpie geese in the Northern Territory has not made an appreciable difference to numbers, habitat change through rising sea levels and flooding of the coastal greenlands could have a big impact. Consider that magpie geese were once much more abundant in the Macquarie Marshes in central-western NSW, but far less so as water levels dropped. A century ago the magpie geese even made their homes in swamp waters south-east of Melbourne, before the swamps were drained.

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/edens-lost-horizons/2007/11/27/1196036893249.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. What global warming?

:shrug:

[XemaSab]

2. Isn't most of the sea level rise in that area due to Walker circulation?

:shrug: