1. Announcing 2019's twelfth and final installment of “2C: Beyond the Limit,” our series exploring the fastest warming places on the Earth. And, I have to say, it’s a striking note to close the year on. washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…
2. @bydarrylfears and @bonjomo traveled to Australia – and then, from there, to its southern island of Tasmania – to investigate a devastating ocean warming hotspot that has formed.
3. The warming of the ocean here, far above the average, just shy of 2 degrees Celsius since 1900 – has devastated an entire ecosystem founded on 30 foot high forests of giant kelp. 
4. But the damage has not been merely biological or ecological, or to the fisheries that relied on species that relied on the kelp.
5. It has been a cultural blow to a people who already had suffered a historic injustice through colonization – the Tasmanian Aboriginals. As @bydarrylfears writes
6. I did some of the science research backing this story, particularly focused on the hotspot itself off the eastern coast of Tasmania. Here’s what we know.
7. In this particular case, scientists have a long, high quality empirical record of ocean temperatures, which have been recorded at a station at Tasmania’s Maria Island all the way back to 1944. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…
8. That record shows about 1.6 C of ocean warming up to the present, so a very fast rate in under 100 years. It actually shows 2C in the hottest month of the year at 50 meters deep.
9. The overall warming would easily eclipse 2 degrees Celsius at the current rate if there were 100 years of data, but there are not.
10. However, we were able to use another tool, the UK Hadley Centre’s high resolution sea surface temperature dataset (HADISST), to show that additional warming occurred in this area since 1900, suggesting more like 1.9 C of total change.
11. So it is very near 2C, as best we can tell, and as the warming continues – as is expected – will eclipse that boundary very soon. Another way of looking at it is that the region has warmed at roughly double the global average rate, and even faster than that in recent decades.
12. Scientists agree that it is all being driven by changes to the East Australian Current, which is intensifying and pushing further southward and therefore delivering more warm, tropical water to Tasmania. This also means bringing dozens of new species to the region.
13. The changing currents are driven by large scale wind changes which in turn are linked to global climate change. nature.com/articles/nclim…
14. @bydarrylfears shows that this has been compounded by extreme and long-lasting ocean heatwaves, which have cooked the kelp and the ecosystem built around them, much as also occurred north of here at the Great Barrier Reef.
15.One part of the kelp ecosystem is abalone, traditionally caught for food by Aboriginal Tasmanians; another is pearlescent snail shells used to make traditional jewelry.
16. @bydarrylfears introduces us to Rodney Dillon, an Aboriginal elder who still dives for abalone in these waters. “It’s getting hotter and that heat, it’s affecting not only the giant kelp, but the color of the abalone is changing,” he says.
17. And he introduces us to Patsy Cameron, who makes jewelry from shells found on the kelp. “If climate change destroys the seaweed, our shell supply will disappear along with the kelp forest,” she said.
18. In sum, the story captures how these practices of a seaside culture are now threatened by climate change – in a sense compounding what Aboriginal Tasmanians suffered in the first place from brutal colonial policies.
19. It underscores a major theme that we have been exploring throughout this series -- how climate change contributes to injustice.
20. For no good reason – except physics – some parts of the world are being disproportionately hit with far more warming than others.
21. So when we set global targets for warming, like 1.5C or 2C, we are in a sense tacitly acknowledging that by the time the globe as a whole reaches one of these levels, individual places may have been subjected to much more warming than that.
22. This also suggests the argument, I think, that 1.5C and 2C are both targets that allow quite a lot of severe damage -- it of course being a political call when it comes to how much the world should be willing to tolerate. But, just look at Australia.
23. Along its eastern coast, you’ve had massive and likely irreversible damage to two foundational ocean ecosystems, the Great Barrier Reef and Tasmania’s giant kelp forest.
24. This has occurred at 1 degrees C of warming globally – but that 1C has been compounded, in this region, by strong ocean heatwaves and the presence of an ocean warming hotspot.
25. It’s certainly a lot of damage to experience at what is supposed to be a “safe” level of climate change. To say nothing of the extreme heat and fires that are also being experienced on land.
26.But enough of these thoughts of mine – the story of climate change in Tasmania, as brilliantly captured by @bydarrylfears and @bonjomo, is what should occupy your attention! Again, you can read it here washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/… /end
