Member Groups; The Lismore Land Protection Group, Weering-Eurack Landcare Group, Leslie Manor Landcare Group, Cundare Duverney Landcare Group, Weerite Landcare Group & Mount Elephant Community Management
Is the Weather Weird or a Taste of the Future?
Birds on Farms – volunteer bird watchers wanted
Feralscan
COMING UP
Daylesford/Hepburn Springs bus trip
CCMA Victorian Volcanic Plains 6th R & D Forum
Landcare Victoria "Building connections on Bellarine"
Mount Elephant open day
Open every Sunday from 1pm to 4pm
Daylesford/Hepburn Springs bus trip
This years bus trip has been re-scheduled and will now be held over 27th to 29th June 2018. The same excellent line up of properties and projects is still arranged. We are seeking more participants so encourage anyone interested to put their name down or contact Shari if you would like to know more. The cost will be no more than $300 per person, this cost is all inclusive (transport, accommodation, all meals and entry fees).
CCMA Victorian Volcanic Plains 6th R & D Forum 9:30am-4.00pm Thursday 7 June 2018
Waurn Ponds Estate, Nicol Drive South, Waurn Ponds RSVP and more info - Chelsey Langley on 0428393909 or Chelsey.langley@ccma.vic.gov.au by Wed 30th May (please specify any dietary requirements)
Landcare Victoria "Building connections on Bellarine" 25-27th May Camp Wyuna, Queenscliff.
This event will feature field trips, panel discussions and workshops looking at how we can learn from each other and build connections between Landcare communities locally and across Victoria. Registrations are essential and $60 covers all catering and accommodation for the 3 days. For information visit http://www.lvi.org.au/events/lvi-regional-forum or contact Kaye Rodden on 0438 317499 or email nidgee@reachnet.com.au. Registrations close 14 May
Birds on Farms – volunteer bird watchers wanted
The Birds on Farms project engages farmers and the local community to monitor woodland birds within agricultural areas across Victoria, and re-visits sites from BirdLife Australia’s original Birds on Farms project (from 1995 – 1997) to assess temporal changes in bird assemblages. To carry out these surveys Bird Life Australia is seeking volunteers to monitor birds within the survey sites. Surveys are carried out every 3 months using the 2 hectare – 20 minute method on properties which either retain natural habitat values or are in the process of restoring native vegetation. Each property will have up to 4 survey plots on it so the 3 monthly survey may take around half a day (allowing for travel times). There is also a need for ‘birdwatching teachers’ to mentor other interested volunteers for the first survey or two. If you are interested in being involved as a bird watching volunteer to offer your property as a survey site, contact Shari at LLPG for a registration form. More information can be found at www.birdlife.org.au/projects/woodland-birds-for-biodiversity/birds-on-farms-wl
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Feralscan
Feralscan is a website and app for monitoring and recording the presence and control of a range of pest animals. It has recently has some changes that now makes it easy for the public to record the presence of rabbits, foxes, deer, wild pigs and a host of other pest animals.
The information added by community members has helped thousands of people, community groups and organisations to take action to reduce the impacts of pests in their local area by preventing mouse plagues in wheat crops; controlling rabbits along roads; protecting native fauna and lambs from foxes; reducing feral cat predation on threatened native wildlife, and more.
It is quick and easy to use, and your efforts will to help reduce the problems caused by introduced pest species. So please take a minute or two (and that is all it takes) to add data at https://www.feralscan.org.au or use the FeralScan App from AppStore.
Is the Weather Weird or a Taste of the Future?
A lot of weather related records are being broken lately with the Bureau of Meteorology releasing their climate summary for 2017, which showed 2017 was Australia’s third hottest year on record since records began in 1910. Seven of Australia’s warmest years have occurred since 2005 and the 11 year mean temperature between 2007 and 2017 was highest on record.
The annual national mean temperature across Australia for 2017 was 0.95oC above the long term average, despite 2017 not being an El Nino year, which are generally associated with hotter years (such as 2015 and 2016 which are the warmest years on record for global temperatures). Globally, mean temperatures in 2017 were 0.84oC above the average for the years 1900-2000 making it the 3rd hottest on record since 1880 (NOAA).
Last winter (2017) was the warmest on record for average maximum temperatures across much of Australia, being decile 10 (very much above average).
For spring much of the continent was very much above average (decile 10) or above average (decile 8 -9) for maximum, mean and minimum temperatures.
For summer the maximum, mean and minimum temperatures were very much above average (decile 10) across most of eastern Australia with some areas above average (decile 8 -9).
What are the odds of this?
Research by Dr Andrew King, a climate extremes research fellow at the University of Melbourne, found “Winter warm spells are lasting longer, occurring more often and becoming more intense”. Dr King said “the likelihood of such warm winters occurring will continue to increase as global temperatures rise, with the research finding that the recent record winter temperatures were 60 times more likely to have been caused by human-included climate change”.
source NOAA
Why the Warmer Weather?
Climate change is a consequence of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, trapping more of the sun’s heat (longwave radiation) within the atmosphere. The key culprits are the greenhouse gases (GHG’s) carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, with chlorofluorocarbons and 15 other minor, long-lived halogenated gases also contributing.
Ice cores and other records show that for the past 800,000 years the atmospheric concentration of
Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) ranged from 180 to 260 ppm (parts per million), however it has increased rapidly from about 316 ppm in 1960 to 406ppm in 2017, mostly due to use of fossil fuels.
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) generally ranged from 220 to 270 ppb (parts per billion) but since 2000 has risen sharply to 330ppb.Agriculture contributes about 63% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide from manure, soils and fertiliser usage.
Methane (CH4) ranged from 400 to 650ppb, but since year 1900 has risen rapidly to 1700ppb, with 33% of this attributed to release from mining activities and 27% due to ruminant livestock production (US EPA).
These GHG’s absorb the energy of the suns radiation to cause “radiative forcing”, which is the difference between the amount of incoming (solar) radiation and amount of energy reradiated back out to space. A positive forcing indicates a warming atmosphere.
GHG’s are discussed in terms of their “global warming potential (GWP),” which is a measure of the amount of energy 1 tonne of the gas will absorb over a given period, usually a 100 year time frame. This provides a method to measure the contribution of different GHG emissions upon the warming of the atmosphere and their accumulated impact on the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is used as reference point for comparing the other GHG’s and has a GWP of 1, regardless of the time period used. Carbon dioxide generally remains in the atmosphere for periods ranging from 5 to 200 years, or even longer but its effects can remain for thousands of years (IPCC).
Methane emitted today only lasts about 10 -12 years on average, but methane also absorbs much more energy than carbon dioxide. The net effect of the shorter lifetime and higher energy absorption is reflected in its GWP, estimated to be 24 to 36 over 100 years, (but this increases to 86 when measured over a 20 year time frame) (IPCC).
Nitrous Oxide has a GWP of between 265 to 298 times that of carbon dioxide for a 100-year timescale, and any emitted today will remain in the atmosphere for more than 100 years, on average.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and other fluorocarbons are considered high-GWP gases because, for a given amount of mass, they trap substantially more heat than CO2. The GWPs for these gases can be in the thousands or tens of thousands.(US EPA)
In 2016 carbon dioxide contributed about 65% of total human induced radiative forcing, while methane contributed 16.7%, nitrous oxide 6% and CFC’s 7.3%, and other halogenated gases the balance.
How is this relevant to Agriculture
Rising temperatures and the consequent effect on weather systems and rainfall in the short term and overall climate in the longer term will impact Australia’s environment and agriculture systems, which are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
Although Australia’s GHG emissions are small compared to likes of China and the US, they are very large on a per capita basis. Approximately 38% of Australia’s GHG emissions come from electricity generation, while agriculture creates 15% (excluding associated transport emissions). Methane from ruminant livestock produces 66% of Australian agriculture’s GHG emissions, while carbon loss from soils contributes 15%, land clearing 15%, burning of residues produces 0.5% and fertiliser (urea) losses through volatilisations and leaching contributes 1.3%.
It is in our own interests to undertake actions to reduce GHG emissions, and these actions can also improve productivity, profitability and long term sustainability. Locally, key actions would be to reduce stubble burning and increase soil carbon, reduce losses from nitrogen applications and improve livestock systems to increase the amount of production per unit of GHG emitted.
This newsletter has been funded by the Australian Federal Government’s “Victorian Volcanic Plains Small Grants” Program and the Victorian State Government “Local Landcare Facilitator Initiative”
Lismore Land Protection Group
19 High Street (PO Box 28) Lismore, Victoria 3324 Ph: 03 5596 2384 Landcare Facilitators:
Rod Eldridge: 0458 390146 email: llpgrod@westnet.com.au Shari McConachy 0409 070089 email: llpgsharim@westnet.com.au Find us on the Landcare Gateway here
