Environment and industry news

Australia

ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACTS ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY ENSO VARIABILITY CHANGES

A five-year study found that the increased frequency of strong El Niño and La Niña events post 1960 may be linked to human-caused greenhouse gas activity. The study involved a review of 43 climate models; of which comparisons were drawn between simulations from 1901-1960 with those from 1961-2020. The review found that more than three quarters of climate models produced an amplitude increase in post 1960 ENSO sea surface temperature variability translating into more frequent strong El Niño and La Niña events.

The article can be found on CSIRO website with the full paper published in the Nature Reviews Earth and Environment online journal

New South Wales

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION PLAN 2023--26

In February the NSW EPA announced that they have been progressing through the Climate Change Action Plan 2023-26 released in January 2026. The EPA will be shortly reaching out to licences to conduct a survey to understand the climate actions already being undertaken to mitigate and reduce climate risks. The EPA will also be establishing industry sector advisory groups to help inform and co-design our industry-specific climate change actions.

For information on the Climate Change Policy and Climate Change Action Plan can be found on the NSW EPA website.

Queensland

Independent Review Of Powers And Penalties Under The Ep Act

A independent adequacy review of the of powers and penalties available under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (the Act) in 2021 provided 18 recommendations that aim to prevent pollution and provide appropriate tools for nuisance matters to take stronger action against polluters and better protect community health and wellbeing.

Several recommendations designed to ensure that the environmental regulator has the appropriate tools in place to prevent and manage environmental impacts have been included in the Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2023 (EPLOLA Act) which passed parliament in March 2023.

The remainder of the recommendations are subject to development of detailed proposals and stakeholder consultation. A detailed consultation paper and/or Regulatory Impact Statement will be released in the second half of 2023.

Detailed information on the independent review, recommendations and the Queensland Government’s response can be found on the Department of Environment and Science website.

Tasmania

Monitoring Air Quality Across Tasmania

A summary of air quality monitoring data for Tasmania of IQAir’s recently published 5th Annual World Air Quality Report 2022 as undertaken by EPA Tasmania. The report lists the Tasmanian townships of New Norfolk, Longford and Perth, to regularly experience poor winter-time air quality due to smoke from residential wood heaters.

The article can be found on EPA Tasmania’s website and a copy of the Annual World Air Quality Report 2022 can be found on the IQAir website.

Release Of Environmental Monitoring Informationphase One Launched

The Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act 1994 (the Act) has recently been amended to include among other things a new section 23AA that provides the Director EPA with the discretion to publish, provide or make available environmental monitoring information. The aim of the changes to the Act is to improve transparency and allow public scrutiny of important information about the environmental effects of industries operating in Tasmania’s environment, further supporting public confidence in Tasmania’s environmental regulatory system.

To provide guidance on how the Director EPA intends to exercise the discretion to release environmental monitoring information an Environmental Monitoring Information Disclosure Policy (the Policy) has been prepared as Phase 1 of the implementation plan. More information can be found on EPA Tasmania’s website including the Policy

Western Australia

EPA’S REVISED GHG GUIDANCE FLAGS DEEP AND SUBSTANTIAL CUTS

On 5 April 2023 the EPA published the revised Environmental Factor Guideline – Greenhouse Gas Emissions (EFG – GHG). The revised guideline can be found on EPA’s website.

New Zealand

COUNTING CARBON – NZ CONTRIBUTES TO GLOBAL CO2 STOCKTAKE

New Zealand researchers have contributed to the first ever stocktake of global greenhouse gas emissions in a project that involved more than 100 countries including scientists from NIWA. Measurements from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission were used to estimate atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 2015 to 2020, in addition to surface-based observations. For the global stocktake, NIWA provided remote sensing and ground-based measurements from their Baring Head clean air station near Wellington, home to the longest running continuous CO2 measurements in the Southern Hemisphere.

Interestingly, the data from this station differed from the estimates provided by the satellites. Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, NIWA’s Principal Scientist for Carbon Chemistry and Modelling, says this is because satellite systems aren’t well designed for small countries, such as New Zealand. The full article can be found on the NIWA website.

International

BROKEN RECORD: ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS JUMP AGAIN

Carbon dioxide levels measured at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii peaked at 424 parts per million in May, continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years.

Measurements of CO2 obtained by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory averaged 424.0 ppm in May, the month when CO2 peaks in the Northern Hemisphere. That is an increase of 3.0 ppm over May 2022 and represents the fourth-largest annual increases in the peak of the Keeling Curve in NOAA’s record.

Carbon dioxide levels are now more than 50% higher than they were before the onset of the industrial era. More information can be found on NOAA’s website.

ORDER IN CHAOS: ATMOSPHERE’S ANTARCTIC OSCILLATION HAS NATURAL CYCLE

Climate scientists at Rice University have discovered a natural 150-day cycle in the north-south oscillation of atmospheric pressure patterns that drive the movement of the Southern Hemisphere’s prevailing westerly winds and the Antarctic jet stream.

The Antarctic oscillation otherwise known as the Southern Annual Mode (SAM) is an important climate driver for Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. The variability of the Southern Hemisphere extratropical large-scale circulation is dominated by the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), whose timescale is extensively used as a key metric in evaluating state-of-the-art climate models. Past observational and theoretical studies suggest that the SAM lacks any internally generated (intrinsic) periodicity. The new study suggests through using observations and a climate model hierarchy, that the SAM has an intrinsic 150-day periodicity. This periodicity is associated with a complex interaction of turbulent eddies and zonal wind anomalies, as the latter propagate from low to high latitudes. It is suggested that this periodicity should be considered in evaluating climate models and understanding the past, current, and projected Southern Hemisphere climate variability.

More information on this article can be found on the Rice University media page including a link to the peer reviewed paper

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration