Firestorm: Firemen monitor a conflagration raging in the Bunyip State Park near Labertouche, 125 km west of Melbourne, on Saturday. More than 40 blazes raged across two states as a once-in-a-century heatwave pushed the mercury as high as 46 ºC.
Credit: AFP
SYDNEY: Australia is naturally the most fire-prone continent on Earth, but climate change may be making the wildfires that regularly sweep across the country more ferocious, scientists said Monday.
The intensity of the firestorm that killed at least 170 people in Victoria state has stunned Australians, even though they have a long history of dealing with bushfires.
Fire-prone vegetation
The government-run Bureau of Meteorology says Australia's dry climate and naturally combustible vegetation, including oil-rich eucalyptus forest, meant fire was an intrinsic part of the country's landscape.
The history books back up the theory – 75 dead in the "Ash Wednesday" fires of 1983, 71 killed in "Black Friday" of 1939 and dozens more stretching back to the early days of white settlement in Australia.
But the wildfires that hit Victoria on the weekend, and are still continuing in some places, were the nation's deadliest and some experts believe the problem is linked to climate change.
"Climate change, weather and drought are altering the nature, ferocity and duration of bushfires," said Gary Morgan, head of the government-backed Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. "This weekend's fires highlight the importance of scientific research in order to improve our understanding of the multiple impacts of bushfires."
Record-breaking heat
Australian poet Dorothy McKeller described the country as a land "of drought and flooding rains" and University of Sydney bushfire expert Mark Adams said there was evidence it was becoming even more volatile.
"I have never seen weather and other conditions as extreme as they were on Saturday, the fire weather was unprecedented," Adams said.
"We don't have all the evidence yet to fully explain this day in terms of climate change, however all the science to date shows that we can expect more extreme weather in the years to come," he added. "That includes hotter days and a drier landscapes across southern Australia."
Research by the Bureau of Meteorology and the government science organisation CSIRO predicts the number of days when bushfires pose an extreme risk in south-eastern Australia could almost double by 2050 under a worst-case climate change scenario.
Mouthpiece
Seems Cosmos is another mouthpiece for GW movement. Sigh. Ya, whatever. Everything is due to GW now. Cold is due to instabilities induced by GW. Move out into a dessert and complain it's hot. Hurricanes of 3 and 4 years hitting the US coast were a sign of GW. No, or 1 or 2 hitting since is a sign of GW. GW makes hurricanes more intense and frequent except when GW makes wind shear blow the tops off hurricanes making them less frequent. GW makes them move right into the gulf except when GW makes them move along the east coast. It's hot and dry in Australia, now who would have thought that? BTW I found the Arctic ice sheet, it's in Kentucky.
Definitely
I have 2 agree with you, any intense weather that happens and the overcrazed greeenies with start screaming and saying the same two words-global warming.
Not just greenies..
It isn't just the greenies these days. Now that the IPCC has 'legitamised' GW the media is just as keen to use GW as an excuse for a headline and will look to quote anyone who is willing to say it.
we don't know what the effects of GW will be with any accuracy so wild claims are just that.
you have got be kidding
surely you turn to Cosmos to quote truthfully verifiable sources of information. To even try to draw this conclusion at this time demeans the reader and the magazine. Let the royal commission do its work and let us be quick to act on the findings so that this does not occur again.