Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Overall, the rapid rate of marine environmental change, combined with our
limited comprehension of responses and interactions, means that our understanding
and ability to respond to the large-scale changes that face Australia and its regional
marine resources are insufficient to devise future management strategies. As we move
towards a Four Degree World, there is now sufficient evidence to conclude that there
will be very different marine communities forming along the Australian coastline.
These communities will involve very different competitive and predator-prey inter-
actions and are likely to be temporary in themselves given that global climate in a
Four Degree World will be far from stability and will continue to change dramati-
cally. As discussed above, these ecosystems and communities are unlikely to have the
same charismatic appeal or the same potential to provide the same level of ecological
goods and services that ecosystems such as coral reefs and kelp forests do today.
Conclusion
This analysis could be interpreted as being unduly pessimistic and alarmist. However,
the extensive changes that have been observed and our deep understanding of many
of the organisms involved (e.g. reef building corals) draw us to conclusions that are in
the main very negative. There is little evidence to suggest that marine resources are
robust enough to resist current and projected climate-change driven environmental
changes, many of which are unprecedented in at least the last several hundred
thousand years. The rapid decline of reef-building corals within the Great Barrier
Reef emphasizes its sensitivity of marine ecosystems to both direct and global human
pressure. Taking into account the known tolerance to change of marine organism
and ecosystem processes, it becomes clear that Australian society faces major pertur-
bations to its marine resources if sea temperatures rise to 2°C above preindustrial
temperatures. Rapid increases to 4°C or above are almost unimaginable in terms of
the ecological, social and economic impacts that are likely to eventuate. Effective
adaptation to these challenges is likely to be impossible given how extensive, and
how expensive, the required interventions would most likely have to be.
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