Tom dinning
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Forests in flames
Images from space show Australia's bushfires in a different light
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Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!
Continental Barbeque.
- Thread starter Tom dinning
- Start date
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Thanks for the link, Tom,
I am taking the editorial liberty of adding some of views in your important thread!
The size of the fires are mind boggling! What are the pluses for new tree growth, or is everything negative?
I am taking the editorial liberty of adding some of views in your important thread!
The size of the fires are mind boggling! What are the pluses for new tree growth, or is everything negative?
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Andy brown
Well-known member
Nothing positive unfortunately Asher.
The Australian bush traditionally recovers very well from fires.
At the moment the ground is so dry much of the Bush won’t be able to make its usual recovery.
Areas of rainforest are also burning. They don’t recover from fires because they don’t usually burn.
The only positive I can see is that the populace are taking climate change seriously at last.
Our Government are puppets of the fossil fuel industry and are failing at every turn and at everything.
Change is going to happen albeit way too late.
The whole place is dry, dusty and either smoky or on fire.
I drove 900 km from Grafton to Canberra this week and not one kilometre had clear air, smoke or thick smoke!
There is a terrible sense of foreboding.
It feels like Armageddon.
Next week will see a nationwide heat wave coming, more temperature extremes will likely fall (highest average temperature for the entire nation being the main one).
Wildlife (think koalas) are being sozzled up in their precious remaining habitat.
No, not much good to report.
Meanwhile the AGW deniers are maintaining their chant (there’s no such thing as climate change, it’s a UN conspiracy) or whatever the fck it is these morons babble on about, hand on the bible and head up their arse!
Meanwhile Christmas carols play in the malls and people buy plastic crap for their darlings.
Weird times.
The Australian bush traditionally recovers very well from fires.
At the moment the ground is so dry much of the Bush won’t be able to make its usual recovery.
Areas of rainforest are also burning. They don’t recover from fires because they don’t usually burn.
The only positive I can see is that the populace are taking climate change seriously at last.
Our Government are puppets of the fossil fuel industry and are failing at every turn and at everything.
Change is going to happen albeit way too late.
The whole place is dry, dusty and either smoky or on fire.
I drove 900 km from Grafton to Canberra this week and not one kilometre had clear air, smoke or thick smoke!
There is a terrible sense of foreboding.
It feels like Armageddon.
Next week will see a nationwide heat wave coming, more temperature extremes will likely fall (highest average temperature for the entire nation being the main one).
Wildlife (think koalas) are being sozzled up in their precious remaining habitat.
No, not much good to report.
Meanwhile the AGW deniers are maintaining their chant (there’s no such thing as climate change, it’s a UN conspiracy) or whatever the fck it is these morons babble on about, hand on the bible and head up their arse!
Meanwhile Christmas carols play in the malls and people buy plastic crap for their darlings.
Weird times.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Yes, all year, we export containers full of plastic scraps from our remaining manufacturers, across the Pacific to China.
Come Xmas, the stores sell us our plastic again, as toys, mobile phones and what nots and then the TV heads remark how great our economy is!
What is the point of more schools, lawyers and chemists when there will not be butterflies for children to wonder about!
The concept of economies based on pointless consumption by generating more consumers is suicidal!
But you know that and I said nothing new!
Asher
Come Xmas, the stores sell us our plastic again, as toys, mobile phones and what nots and then the TV heads remark how great our economy is!
What is the point of more schools, lawyers and chemists when there will not be butterflies for children to wonder about!
The concept of economies based on pointless consumption by generating more consumers is suicidal!
But you know that and I said nothing new!
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Andy,
Actually, there is a lot of scientific study supporting a complex cycle of plants depending on and evolved for the recurring fires.
The aboriginals maintained the cleared space under the canopy of giant trees by regular controlled mild fires.
With the European settlers, the native folk were killed and the creation of pastures and ignorance of the Fire cycles led to over accumulation of fuel!
Read more here!
This is such an amazing dependence on fire and we are largely ignorant of what the Bushman knew for tens of thousands of years!
Australia biodiversity requires an interaction between plants, animals insects and birds all playing interrelated and inter-dependant roles. Without hollow dead trees in mature forrest, a shrew as lost the only home it can have. Without birds seeds can’t be brought back to repopulate lost plants and trees. Without fire, the collected fallen seeds can’t germinate!
Read about the amazing richness and abundance of the diverse fire-dependent and get fire-sensitive Australian biosystem of life that is currently up in flames!
Asher
Actually, there is a lot of scientific study supporting a complex cycle of plants depending on and evolved for the recurring fires.
The aboriginals maintained the cleared space under the canopy of giant trees by regular controlled mild fires.
With the European settlers, the native folk were killed and the creation of pastures and ignorance of the Fire cycles led to over accumulation of fuel!
Read more here!
This is such an amazing dependence on fire and we are largely ignorant of what the Bushman knew for tens of thousands of years!
Australia biodiversity requires an interaction between plants, animals insects and birds all playing interrelated and inter-dependant roles. Without hollow dead trees in mature forrest, a shrew as lost the only home it can have. Without birds seeds can’t be brought back to repopulate lost plants and trees. Without fire, the collected fallen seeds can’t germinate!
Read about the amazing richness and abundance of the diverse fire-dependent and get fire-sensitive Australian biosystem of life that is currently up in flames!
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
From this, there’s little doubt in my mind that Australia, likely as not, has the forestry and ecology scientists who might already know enough to devise immediate and long term measures.
The land is so vast, Australians could by what they plant, actually alter the climate, but that needs water!
So the country seems to need an updated water policy, perhaps regular burns and a well funded emergency fire system!
Would create lots of well paying jobs and timber for building homes!
Asher
The land is so vast, Australians could by what they plant, actually alter the climate, but that needs water!
So the country seems to need an updated water policy, perhaps regular burns and a well funded emergency fire system!
Would create lots of well paying jobs and timber for building homes!
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
However, once the temperature of the planet creeps up, the rejuvenation of burnt areas may no longer work so well, according to studies in the USA Rocky Mountains.
So we can’t just wait for our grandkids to sort out this mess as there will be burnt marginally healthy forest that becomes absolutely non viable.
I am still reading on this and will add a link later.
Asher
So we can’t just wait for our grandkids to sort out this mess as there will be burnt marginally healthy forest that becomes absolutely non viable.
I am still reading on this and will add a link later.
Asher
Jerome Marot
Well-known member
The following site has a wealth of satellite data for you to show. Of interest here is the CO (carbon monoxyde) map:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/equirectangular
This is an enlargement of Australia. The fires can be seen as elevated CO concentrations.
As some of the CO is blown away by the winds, the concentration may not pinpoint exactly where the fires are.
Now, this is a map of the complete planet, in equirectangular projection (one can chose the kind of projection on the site):
Red or purple color shows particularly elevated CO. You can see the effect of traffic and coal heating around Beijing, traffic in New York and Los Angeles, fires in equatorial Africa. If you go to the site and enlarge the image, you can pinpoint individual mining operations or coal power plants. The map can be changed to CO2, SO2, particulates, etc... to further refine the analysis.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/equirectangular
This is an enlargement of Australia. The fires can be seen as elevated CO concentrations.
Now, this is a map of the complete planet, in equirectangular projection (one can chose the kind of projection on the site):
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Things are getting worse it seems!
Many areas gave total destruction and there is still major risk from burnt tall trees that suddenly fall and can crush people looking to salvage anything from their destroyed home!
“More than 500 homes have been destroyed by fires raging across Australia and thousands of people face the possibility of Christmas in shelters.
One of the largest fires in the nation’s history ripped through communities west of Sydney. Several villages in the Blue Mountains were partly destroyed despite the efforts of 3,000 firefighters to contain blazes that have now burnt a total area far in excess of that destroyed in the Amazon this year.
All but two of the main roads out of Sydney were cut off as smoke hung over the city, while in South Australia more than 400 homes and buildings were destroyed by fires that erupted and spread in temperatures of 40C or more.”
Many areas gave total destruction and there is still major risk from burnt tall trees that suddenly fall and can crush people looking to salvage anything from their destroyed home!
“More than 500 homes have been destroyed by fires raging across Australia and thousands of people face the possibility of Christmas in shelters.
One of the largest fires in the nation’s history ripped through communities west of Sydney. Several villages in the Blue Mountains were partly destroyed despite the efforts of 3,000 firefighters to contain blazes that have now burnt a total area far in excess of that destroyed in the Amazon this year.
All but two of the main roads out of Sydney were cut off as smoke hung over the city, while in South Australia more than 400 homes and buildings were destroyed by fires that erupted and spread in temperatures of 40C or more.”
Andy brown
Well-known member
Asher, there’s no sign of rain (it’s a distant memory).
Not the most joyous summer I can remember.
Ironically I was quite cool today. I’m on the very far south coast of Australia for Xmas with family and I’m also breathing clean air coming of the southern ocean. Rest of the country is not so lucky.
Not the most joyous summer I can remember.
Ironically I was quite cool today. I’m on the very far south coast of Australia for Xmas with family and I’m also breathing clean air coming of the southern ocean. Rest of the country is not so lucky.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So Andy,
What are the kids doing. Any social/political protests?
Or do the authorities deny there is any human hand in this?
Great your family has fresh air.
Are folk in general trying to move away from the bad air? What about tge poor?
Are they going to close down Industrial production to give the atmosphere chance?
Asher
Jerome Marot
Well-known member
Jerome Marot
Well-known member
Australia's New South Wales is free of fires for 1st time in 240 days
New South Wales is officially free of wildfires after a devastating season.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What’s the link for the update?
Jerome Marot
Well-known member
earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions
See current wind, weather, ocean, and pollution conditions, as forecast by supercomputers, on an interactive animated map. Updated every three hours.