on the breakwater

Our poodlewalks have been very limited in scope and duration this last week.

This was due to Kayla’s surgery to remove the bones that were struck in her small intestine and stomach. She had to walk on a lead, and in the morning we walked down to the beach at Encounter Bay, out along the breakwater near the boat ramp and then back to the house. In the evening, I walked Ari and Maleko whilst Suzanne walked Kayla.

All that I could by way of photography in the morning was to photograph the rocks of the breakwater in the early morning winter light:

We were lucky to have a couple of clear mornings between the showers and squalls that have broken the warm autumn that emerged out of the prolonged summer period in March and that continued into the start of May.I gather that El Niño is now waning into its opposite phase, La Niña. Winter has been wet but not that cold.

As last week progressed our walks went a bit further —off lead on the small beach in front of Whalers, then along the road at the side of Rosetta Head to the jetty at the foot of the Bluff. Kayla’s stitches came out on Friday. She has healed quickly and is now moving easily. We were back to the normal poodle walks walks on Saturday morning.

Winter means that few people are wandering around the plqce, and that means that I had the breakwater to myself in the early morning. However, the warm autumn has thrown mea bit of research suggests that we are already at one degree warmer than pre-industrial levels, and it is increasingly obvious that extreme and destructive weather events like floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves are increasing.

Unfortunately for us, it looks as if warming will slip past 1.5C.The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere gone from the pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million to 400 ppm with warming at one degree. 1.5C will mean concentrations CO2 in the atmosphere at around 430 parts per million. Many at the Paris Agreement were willing to accept a 2C degree target.

What does that–a 2C warmer world—mean for us?