Hundreds of Antarctic scientists at an emergency summit in Hobart have issued a statement calling for urgent action to deal with the climate crisis.
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00:00Over the past week, there's been about 450 polar researchers that have been holding a
00:07conference at the University of Tasmania. It's the first such conference in more than
00:12a decade. And they've described it as an emergency summit. And that's because we've seen some
00:19very rapid and extreme changes taking place in Antarctica in recent times. So there have
00:24been heatwaves where the temperature has been about 40 degrees above average. There's been
00:30record low sea ice levels. Last year, scientists were describing it as a once in seven and
00:36a half million year event. And yet we've seen similar sea ice levels this year again. And
00:42so all of this is a sign of global warming. And that leads to, of course, to sea levels
00:48to rise. And the scientists at this conference have issued a statement saying nowhere on
00:54Earth is there a greater cause for uncertainty in sea level projections than in East Antarctica.
01:00And that's, of course, the area where the Australian Antarctic Territory is. And they
01:05say there's enough ice there, if it were to all melt, to raise global sea levels by 50
01:11metres. And they say that would have immense implications for Australia's infrastructure
01:17and coastline. Here's a little of what one of the researchers had to say.
01:23We throw around the word unprecedented quite a lot in climate science, but it really is
01:28true. We have seen shifts in the sea ice that were beyond our wildest imaginations. We have
01:33seen heatwaves that were 40 degrees warmer than expected weather. We have seen entire
01:39colonies of emperor penguins lose all of their young in a breeding season. To describe it
01:45as anything other than an emergency sells these drastic changes short.
01:50What they want to see is an immediate reduction in carbon in the atmosphere. They say that
01:55unless greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced, it will really lock in some of these potential
02:02sea level rises for future generations. And they also want to see research prioritised
02:08to ensure that we really get a clear picture of what's taking place and what we can expect.
02:14Here's what a couple of the early career researchers who were involved in the drafting of this
02:19new statement had to say.
02:21I think one of the clear things from this conference was that we are approaching some
02:25tipping points that we're not sure whether we can reverse or not. So more funding into
02:30those areas is pretty crucial to understand how it's going to affect our planet.
02:34I feel that there's, although there's lots of tipping points that we don't necessarily
02:39understand completely, we do know enough to say that we do need to protect, we do need
02:46to control our emissions. And for that to happen, it needs to go beyond the walls of
02:53the university. We need to make sure people understand that and really relate to Antarctica
03:00in a way that they see that impacts their future as well.
03:05So those researchers, they're really saying that there's no time to waste when it comes
03:09to taking action in relation to climate change and specifically in relation to Antarctica.
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