TheBanyanTree: Australian climate

[Peter Macinnis]

The death toll from the fires in Victoria has now reached 200, and it is
expected to go higher, though some bodies may never be found.  An
analysis last night revealed that the bushfire index, something I played
a small role in developing by being one of the foot-soldiers who helped
measure things in the 1960s, that index went to 200 on the day of the
fires.  It had a perceived limit of 100: that was the worst it could
get. Everybody knew that.

The number of homes lost has exceeded 1000, the voluntary funds raised
to date exceed $100 million.  People have opened their wallets.

What caused the fires?  Many political hatchet wielders are seeking to
pin the blame on greenies who allegedly blocked fuel reduction (I
qualify as a greenie, and I favour fire management).  The greenies are
blaming the neo-cons who use any excuse to deny that our climate is
changing.  I have an opinion, but I will pass by that, and point only to
the off-scale readings on the McArthur Index.

Up in the far north of Queensland (rightly known to the rest of us as
FNQ) has had floods, and one little boy was taken by a crocodile when he
went into the waters after his pet dog.  Floods happen there: it's part
of their tropical climate.

Now out at Bourke, west of here, it's dry.  Everybody knows that.  It's
traditional.  Bourke is roughly where we city folk locate the Black
Stump, because our terms for severe outback are "Beyond the Black Stump"
or "out the back of Bourke".  The average annual rainfall is 300 mm,
about 12 inches, and in the last week, they have garnered 5/6 of that in
Bourke, and let's face it, a heavy dew is enough to bog vehicles.
Inside the town's levee, the tiny stormwater pipes have been unable to
keep up with the water, and pumps that might be used at other times to
fight fires are being used to rid the town of water.

A bit further west, Cooper's Creek has three named rivers feeding into
it, and if you ask locals about this paradox, they'll say, slow and
laconic, "well, it's dry out here--so dry in fact, you need three rives
to make a creek, mate".  Then they'll sit back and look at you.  If you
sit there with a stunned look, they'll snigger; if you run away, they'll
guffaw; if you look at them and say "of course", they may even buy you a
beer, noting as they do that it's a dry heat.

The catchment out the back of Bourke leads down to a lake where speed
records have been set.  Not water, but land speed records, because Lake
Eyre is a salt lake that dries to a very nice, flat surface. Like the
Bonneville Salt Flats, you see.  That used to be a lake once, like Lake
Eyre, but our version just now and then has a yacht club.

Right now, the waters are trickling inexorably down to Lake Eyre, but it
will take three weeks for the first water to arrive.  As the waters
flow, so the water birds will flood in, drawn by some mysterious sense
that there is water and tucker to be had, way out west.  Brine shrimp
will hatch from the mud to feed on the once-dormant algae that flourish
under the boiling sun. Tiny fish will emerge, and the water birds will
engage in an avian orgy of feeding and reproduction.  In the end, the
adults will fly out, abandoning the chicks that failed to fledge in time.

In a few months, all that will be left will be the retreating edges of
the lake, the dead birds, dormant eggs for the next cycle of algae,
shrimp and fish, and the camera crews.  The birds are puzzled, but
somehow, the nature TV crews seem to know when the water is coming, and
they, too, flock to the lake for a filmic orgy of image capture and
extreme pontification.  These wild things are SO amazing.

peter

-- 

   _--|\    Peter Macinnis, Manly, the birthplace of Australian surfing
  /     \   feral word herder, also herbal remedies, bespoke fish
  \.--._*<--hooks, umbrellas mended and budgerigar requisites
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm