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Climate Change Causes Plant Dieback at Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa
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In Short: Between 2018 and 2021, the most severe drought on record unfolded at Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa, exacerbating the impact of climate change.
Using novel 360-degree imaging, scientists and Muṯitjulu Mala Rangers discovered that plant dieback, characterized by the death of leaves, shoots, or roots, covered hundreds of square kilometres within Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa National Park.
The dieback followed record-breaking heatwaves in 2019-2020, leading to mass mortality of robust plants such as kurkaṟa (desert oak), wanaṟi (mulga), and pukaṟa (desert heath myrtle).
Between 2018 and 2021, the most severe drought on record unfolded at Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa, exacerbating the impact of climate change.
This week marks the 41st anniversary of the official handback of Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa to Aṉangu, who bring tens of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge to caring for these lands.
The invasive weed buffel grass is spreading rapidly through Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa, further threatening native plant species and the animals that depend on them.
Aṉangu Rangers and scientists found that plant species died at different rates following the hot drought, suggesting that water use during a drought might explain why some desert species are more likely to die than others.
The findings highlight the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on this World Heritage-listed site and its unique biodiversity.
Pacific leaders and international delegates have been welcomed to Fiji for Pre-COP31, with a call for discussions to focus on protecting communities, livelihoods, and the ocean from the growing impacts of climate change.
Three key priorities were highlighted for the discussions: keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach, ensuring climate finance reaches communities that need it, and giving the ocean the prominence it deserves in global climate negotiations.
What this adds
The research underscores the vulnerability of desert ecosystems to climate change and the importance of traditional knowledge in managing these impacts.
What's confirmed
- Using novel 360-degree imaging, scientists and Muṯitjulu Mala Rangers discovered that plant dieback, characterized by the death of leaves, shoots, or roots, covered hundreds of square kilometres within Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa National Park.
- The dieback followed record-breaking heatwaves in 2019-2020, leading to mass mortality of robust plants such as kurkaṟa (desert oak), wanaṟi (mulga), and pukaṟa (desert heath myrtle).
- Between 2018 and 2021, the most severe drought on record unfolded at Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa, exacerbating the impact of climate change.
- This week marks the 41st anniversary of the official handback of Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa to Aṉangu, who bring tens of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge to caring for these lands.
- The invasive weed buffel grass is spreading rapidly through Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa, further threatening native plant species and the animals that depend on them.
- Aṉangu Rangers and scientists found that plant species died at different rates following the hot drought, suggesting that water use during a drought might explain why some desert species are more likely to die than others.
- The findings highlight the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on this World Heritage-listed site and its unique biodiversity.
- Pacific leaders and international delegates have been welcomed to Fiji for Pre-COP31, with a call for discussions to focus on protecting communities, livelihoods, and the ocean from the growing impacts of climate change.
- Three key priorities were highlighted for the discussions: keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach, ensuring climate finance reaches communities that need it, and giving the ocean the prominence it deserves in global climate negotiations.
What's still developing
- When we hear that climate change is damaging natural environments, it conjures images of rising seas eroding coastlines, or heatwaves bleaching the Great Barrier Reef.
- Since then, Aṉangu have been working with scientists from Parks Australia, CSIRO and a range of universities to determine how climate change is affecting plants at Uluṟu- Kata Tjuṯa.
- In Australia’s red heart, the World Heritage-listed Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park hosts a spectacular array of unique plants and animals, admired by visitors from around the world.
- Sitiveni Rabuka said the discussions ahead were ultimately about life, the life of communities, reefs and nations increasingly exposed to the impacts of a changing climate.
- But that record is on track to be broken soon, the latest seasonal forecast from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center suggests.
- “We’re probably going to reach our peak within the next few months.” The oceanic heat released by the phenomenon could contribute to an increase in global land temperatures of about 1.2 degrees Celsius over the coming months, leading to over 450,000 additional heat-related deaths by February 2027, researchers from the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago report.
- Sea surface temperatures reveal the climate pattern is now the most intense ever recorded As this year’s El Niño strengthens, it’s creating a slash of warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures across the Pacific Ocean, as seen here on August 25.
- “It has been a remarkable event,” says Nathaniel Johnson, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J.
- For months, scientists have cautioned that the natural climate pattern could grow into a record-breaking beast, releasing extraordinary amounts of heat from the ocean and fueling droughts, floods, heat waves and severe storms.
- But there’s not yet a scientific consensus on how climate change is impacting El Niño, especially an extreme El Niño like this one.
- It shares many elements with the Mediterranean diet, but it's essentially the cold-climate version.
- "Plus, because it leans on foods grown and caught close to home, rather than shipped in from afar, this way of eating tends to do more to support local food production. Thus potentially making it better for the climate."