EXPERT REACTION: August 2016 - another record-breaking scorcher

The critical point is that those opposing action to slow climate change are still using the dishonest trick of using the extreme El Nino year of 1998 as a starting point to claim that there has been a pause in global warming. It is becoming crystal clear that warming is accelerating and a concerted response is urgent. That in turn means it would be criminally irresponsible to allow a new export coal mine like the Adani proposal.

The past 16 moths are an extraordinary illustration of the unstoppable progression of climate change here in Australia and the world. Most compelling, however, are the impacts to our natural endowment here in Australia that have taken place over the past year, and their negative impacts on the economic sectors associated with them. From unprecedented bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, to the die off of hundreds of kilometers of coastal mangroves in the Gulf of Carpenteria, to the burning of alpine sensitive ecosystems in Tasmania.

Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that, yet again, the global monthly temperature has set a new record. Record heat in the ocean and over land has contributed to the warmest August on record, beating the previous record that was set just last year.

We have now seen 16 consecutive months where record global temperatures have been set for that particular month, with 2016 clearly shaping up to overtake 2015 as the hottest year on record. Record months in the second half of 2015 and early 2016 had some influence from one of the strongest El Niños on record.

However, during the last few months neutral conditions have prevailed. This makes the recent August, and the record-setting months before it even more remarkable – human-induced climate change is clearly affecting global temperatures beyond the bounds of the climate system’s natural variability.

We've now seen record-breaking heat across the globe for the past 16 consecutive months. Six to twelve months ago, the strong El Niño played a part in driving high global temperatures, but that effect has now waned or completely disappeared by August. The influence of climate change in driving these continuous monthly records is now coming through loud and clear.

Given this incredible string of record-breaking high temperatures, one wonders how climate-change deniers can continue to claim that this is some kind of strange coincidence or conspiracy. There’s still plenty we don’t know about climate change, but virtually no mainstream scientist would argue that we’re not increasingly paying the price for our planet-polluting ways.

The run of record-breaking high global temperatures over the past year or more has shown that the urgency of the problem has, if anything, been underestimated. National governments around the world have responded with stepped-up measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Most notably, China has taken strong steps to close coal-fired power stations and encourage renewables.
 
By contrast, Australian policy has gone backwards since the abolition of the carbon price, with the result that emissions are now increasing. Despite this, and despite widespread support for more effective policy proposals put forward by the Climate Change Authority, the current government is scaling back its efforts even further, promising only a review in 2017. Urgent action is needed now if Australia is not to become an international laggard.

This new August record increases the likelihood that 2016 will be another annual record.  These rising temperatures are not good news for the natural environment - witness the recent bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef - and signal ongoing changes to the climate system and sea level rise caused by our continuing emissions of greenhouse gases. Urgent mitigation of our emissions is required.

Global warming is occurring at an alarming rate as the figures from the NOAA clearly indicate.  These findings reveal the profound importance of adopting immediate, focused, strategic directives that support and incentivise carbon abatement in the desperate race to contain global warming to 2°C.

As one of the highest sources of carbon emissions, our  global approach to energy production must be revolutionised and a new energy mix must be introduced. This demands, amongst other things, the introduction of large-scale renewable energy projects, the implementation of new technological processes reducing the carbon footprint during the extraction process of transitional resources such as gas, localised support and engagement via a strategic shift to community ownership models for renewable energy projects, policy and regulatory changes that support and reinforce a new energy mix and incentivise a behavioural shift away from the commercialisation of fossil fuel consumption.

In the wake of the Paris Summit, Australia must provide strong, unequivocal bipartisan support for such action. If the figures released today reveal anything, they highlight the imperative need for unprecedented global collaboration and strong leadership. We must, as Theodore Roosevelt famously said, 'strive valiantly.' Hopefully we are not too late for the triumph of high achievement, but at worst, if we fail, at least we fail knowing that our place is not with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

August 2016 as the 16th hottest consecutive month on record is a red flag that needs to be seen in context to appreciate it. Scientists need to carve up small pieces of the climate change puzzle to establish certainty within their field of expertise; but without all the other pieces in place, how is the public to make sense of it? On its own, this latest red flag is again easily dismissed and forgotten as yesterday's news.

It's only when we place it alongside all the other evidence that the full, slow, inexorable enormity of the situation really hits home, whether it be estimates of planetary livability against human metabolic heat loss, or the upward trends in size, intensity and frequency of catastrophic megafires in every habitable continent, including Australia.  The list could go on.  When I show denialists these graphs they go very quiet. This is not yesterday's news - it's tomorrow's.

Temperatures in the Pacific Ocean vary from decade-to-decade as well as from year-to-year. Over the past 15 years or so the Pacific Ocean has been in its cool state on the decade-to-decade timescale, which has temporarily reduced the rate of warming of the surface of the planet since around 2000. However, it appears that we may now be entering a warm state in the Pacific. If that occurs, we will likely see an acceleration of the rate of global surface temperature rise over the coming decade.

The global mean temperature in 2015 was the highest on record. It was also the year of the highest concentration of CO2. It looks like 2016 is heading for a similarly high mean temperature. Moreover, “14 of the 15 highest monthly temperature departures in the record have occurred since February 2015” (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2016).

These facts reinforce the need for strong policy measures in all countries to reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions.  Such policies will encourage a switch to non-polluting technologies for electricity generation and industrial production. 

This raises the question of how to achieve the implied stricter greenhouse gas emission targets. 
Current Australian government policy, direct action, is only a short-term compromise. You can, in theory, restrict emissions under any of the policy alternatives. The difficulty with direct action, used alone, is that it quickly becomes extremely costly to tighten the emissions target, and it gets restrictive in terms of the amount of government involvement necessary. The Liberal-National government is unlikely to support such a policy scenario in the long term. 

Most economic analysis shows that an emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the most efficient, least-cost policy, so that economic pressure will encourage its adoption. Also, an ETS is the international standard. Every country that is seriously tackling carbon emissions has an ETS. Moreover, it would be counterproductive for Australia not to be a full participant in the international carbon market. 
Having said that, in reality, policy to reduce greenhouse gases will be an amalgam of various policies, as it is in Europe, where an ETS is the principal policy, but where some elements of direct action also exist in the form of incentives to firms to adopt non-polluting technology.

Conclusion: Expect an emissions trading scheme in Australia as early as 2018.

The August global temperature figures show the continuing influence of the 2015-16 El Niño on top of the long-term warming trend. While the El Niño itself finished several months ago, historic experience tells us that the influence of major El Niño events on global temperatures continues until around August or September.
 
A notable feature of August is that it was warm just about everywhere – the only part of the world where temperatures were significantly below normal was a small part of eastern Siberia. Most of Australia had above-average temperatures in August, with near-normal daytime temperatures but warmer-than-average nights.
 
As the influence of El Niño fades, we can expect monthly global temperatures to drop back to levels more typical of the last decade by the end of this year, but it still looks highly likely that 2016 will break the record for the world’s warmest year which was set just last year.

We have now experienced 16 consecutive record hot months as the effects of El Nino and climate change have combined to cause global record-breaking temperatures. While El Nino has boosted the global temperatures over the last year, the heat we've seen would be virtually impossible without the effect of human-caused climate change. It's already clear that 2016 is almost certain to be the hottest year on record globally making it the third consecutive record hot year for the planet.