*For the previous four months an 'ecological catastrophe' has been occurring along Adelaide's coastal beaches!

* Sharks, stingrays, fish, sea dragons, shellfish, cuttlefish, eels, razor clams are dying along South Australia's coastline: a great white shark on Henley Beach! 

*The ecological disaster is caused by a massive algal bloom of Karenia mikimotoi. Algal blooms reduce the oxygen levels in the water which suffocates animals with gills.

*The present bloom that first affected the eyes and breathing of surfers on the Fleurieu peninsula has now spread from northern Kangaroo Island to the top of the Gulf of St Vincent, along the full stretch of Adelaide's metropolitan beaches, and impacting from The Coorong at the mouth of the Murray River to the Eyre Peninsula. 'It covers an area of about 4500 square kilometres - near twice the size of the Australian Capital Territory!

* So what caused the bloom?? 'There's no question that this phenomenon occurred because of climate change!', South Australian Environment Minister, Susan Close, told ABC 'Stateline'.  Supporting her statement, 

*'The most significant factor (causing the bloom) is a persistent marine heatwave... 'Since September the local waters have been up to 2.5C degrees warmer - ecologically we should not underestimate (the impact) of that.'  [Prof. Mehdi Doroudi, Chief Executive, SA's Department of Primary Industries and Regions]

World's oceans are absorbing about 90% of human-induced heat.  The Southern Ocean has seen the largest rise in heat storage over the last twenty years (2023 UNSW Study). In addition, floods of 2022-23 caused unprecedented amounts of fresh water and nutrients entering the oceans from the Murray River, unusual upwelling in 2024 brought nutrients from the bottom of the sea to the surface and in 2025 consecutive high-pressure systems and drought resulted in cloudless still days. All of these factors, heat and nutrients, produced the persistent heatwave and ideal conditions for the algal outbreak. 

* Some cooling winds in May did not reduce the heatwave - particularly at deeper depths the heatwave remains!

(based on Mills.J., 'On the Beach', The Saturday Paper, Number 560, July 2025, p.11)

** COMMENT:

*The single most important cause of increasing temperatures lasting longer in Earth's oceans is the oceans'  increasing difficulty of absorbing the increasing heat being generated by fossil fuel emissions. These emissions are being trapped in a shrinking envelope between Earth and an expanding increasing layer of carbon dioxide and GHGs: It's the 'Greenhouse Effect': put simply, short wave Sun's rays are able to get to Earth: long wave Earth radiation increasingly cannot return to the atmosphere and is trapped between Earth and the layer of CO2 bouncing backwards and forwards between the two, heating up the atmosphere, Earth and oceans.

To put it simply, we humans are cooking ourselves and everything else on Earth because of our continued obsessive burning of fossil fuels!

While we keep doing it there will only be increasing incidences of ecological catastrophes like those unfolding on Adelaide's beaches!

It is now becoming increasingly impossible for the human-induced heat from the burning of fossil fuels to escape back to the atmosphere because of the thickening layer of CO2 and GHGs: Any escape of heat is minimal and only occurs at higher and higher altitudes.  (see: Krauss. L. 'The Physics of Climate Change', 2024)

The original heat balancing mechanisms of Earth- atmospheric and ocean currents- that ensured the amount of sun's heat entering Earth's atmosphere also exited back into the atmosphere are now broken! They are incapable of absorbing and rebalancing the heat humans have caused by the burning of fossil fuels.  (see for example: Goodell.J., 'Heat'; Krauss.L 'The Physics of Climate Change')

** The only solution?? - leave fossil fuels where they belong - in the ground! - and move as quickly as possible to renewably generated energy!   More solar panels on roofs and battery storage in every household! More EVs for public and private transport! 

** Let's put a carbon tax on all goods and services! (Garnaut, 2024) Let's put a super-profit tax on every fossil fuel miner and producer! Let's (renewably Electrify Everything for Everyone! 

*** As Joelle Gergis so beautifully demonstrates 'The future of our World is definitely in OUR hands!' (Gergis.J. 2022) 

*** As Prof Brian Cox argues from all of  the astronomical evidence currently available - Our Earth is the only planet in our entire galaxy that has developed and has sustained complex life: it is the only place that people think, talk, imagine, create, dance and love!

Doesn't that alone place an awesome responsibility on we humans to ensure that we live in ways that ensure its continued existence? 

(by David Smith for Electrifying Bradfield Inc.)