Oceania Flashcards
What is Oceania made of?
Australia
New Zealand
Papuan New Guinea
The Pacific Islands
Three pacific island regions
Melanesia
Micronesia
Polynesia
Australia was once a part of what continent?
Gondwana
Great Barrier Reef
Influences Australia climate by interrupting the westward flowing ocean currents in the mid-south pacific circulation pattern.
Typical landforms
Flat
Wind wears down most landforms
Volcanic Islands
High islands are usually volcanoes that rise above into mountains and rocky formations.
An atoll is a low-laying island or chain of islands formed of coral reefs that build up in a circular or oval rim of a submerged volcano.
Climate
The slightly warm water temperatures of the central pacific bring mild climates year round to nearly all inhabited parts of the region.
Seasonal variations in temperature are greatest in the southernmost regions of Australia and New Zealand.
Moisture and Rainfall
Much of Oceania is warm and humid nearly all the time.
New Zealand and the High Islands of the Pacific receive copious amounts of rainfall; before human settlement, they supported dense forest vegetation.
Roaring Forties; named the 40th parallel south are powerful air and ocean currents that speed around the far Southern Hemisphere free from land masses.
Roaring Forties
Named the 40th parallel south are powerful air and ocean currents that speed around the far Southern Hemisphere free from land masses.
Orographic Rainfall
Produced when moist air is lifted as it moves over a mountain range. As the air rises and cools, orographic clouds form and serve as the source of the precipitation. Most of which falls upwind of the mountain range.
Australian Climate
2/3 of Australia is overwhelmingly dry. The dominant winds affecting Aus blow east to west that converge east of the continent.
Only has one major river system which is in the temperate SE where most of Aus lives
Fauna and Flora
Oceania is compromised of a isolated continent and numerous islands. This affects its animal life (fauna) and plant life (flora)
Many species are endemic
Global Climate Change
Oceania with the exception of Australia is a minor contributor of greenhouse gases. Australia has some of the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita basis.
If seas levels rise 4 inches per decade as predicted by the international panel on climate change, many of the low lying pacific atolls such as Tuvalu will disappear underwater within 50 years.
Response to climate change crisis
Australia remains dependant on fossil fuel sales (primarily coal, but also crude oil as natural gas) to Asia, but it pursuing renewable energy strategies for use at home.
New Zealand has set a goal of obtaining 95% of its energy from renewable resources by 2025.
2015 Paris Agreement
Brought all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current, and future responsibilities. The universal agreement main aim is to keep a global temperature rise the century below 2 degrees and to limit temp increase even more 1.5 degrees
Climate change negotiation
- Cook Islands
- Australia
Cook Islands; high vulnerability, future is the biggest concern, risk to subsidence
Australia; low vulnerability, present is biggest concern, risks to wealth
Environments issues
Invasive species
Many unique endemic plants and animals of Oceania have been displaced by invasive species. Organisms that spread into regions outside their natural range, affecting economies and environments.
European rabbits are the most destructive of the introduced species. Early British settlers who enjoyed rabbits brought them to Aus.
Human impacts on biosphere
-Fishing
-Nuclear weapon testing; the geopolitical aspects of globalization have hit Oceania especially hard. Weapon testing by France and the US from 1940s and 60s (cold war) as well as accepting nuclear waste from various nuclear powers, have become major environmental issues for the Pacific Islands.
-plastic pollution;
-tourism; foreign owned enterprises have often accelerated the loss of wetlands and worsened beach erosion by clearing coastal vegetation for hotel construction, golf courses, and water front related entertainment.
Also strained island water sources because of showering, laundering, and other services consuming fresh water.
Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument
US made island areas no fishing zones
UN Convention of the Law of the Sea- UNCLOS (1994)
The world oceans are connected so the problems are interrelated
Ratified by 167 countries plus the EU (not the USA)
Treaty allows countries to claim rights to ocean resources out to 200 mile limit (EEZ’s - exclusive economic zones)
Defines boundaries if international waters.
