Screenshot / Satellite Image
While much of the world’s media has ignored Australia’s massive bushfires, they offer a frightening glimpse of our future under the climate crisis.
Many commentators say the fires are significantly worse than Amazon rainforest fires, with most of the Australian continent affected.
The air quality in Australia is so bad due to the ash and pollution that even New Zealand is being affected. For clarification, the distance between Sydney, Australia and Wanaka, New Zealand is roughly the same as the distance between Miami and Boston.
Over the holidays, journalists were showing that glaciers and national parks in NZ had turned brown because of the fallen ash.
This is high above the Fiordland National Park in New Zealand today. Do you see that pinkish brown hue to the snow? That’s fallen ash from the Australian bush fires that are burning 2000km away. #AustralianFires pic.twitter.com/TzSQBo3JC8
— Elizabeth Paton (@LizziePaton) December 29, 2019
“Smoke which has travelled around 2,000km across the Tasman Sea can clearly be seen,” New Zealand’s official forecaster MetService tweeted.
A Twitter user called Miss Roho added: “We can actually smell the burning here in Christchurch [NZ].”
This the view from the top of the Tasman Glacier NZ today - whole South island experiencing bushfire clouds. We can actually smell the burning here in Christchurch. Thinking of you guys. 😢#nswbushfire #AustralianFires #AustraliaBurning pic.twitter.com/iCzOGkou4o
— Miss Roho (@MissRoho) January 1, 2020
Near Franz Josef glacier. The “caramelised� snow is caused by dust from the bushfires. It was white yesterday pic.twitter.com/Ryqq685Ind
— Fabulousmonster (@Rachelhatesit) December 31, 2019
SBS Australia reported that white glaciers in New Zealand had turned brown from the drifting smoke.
The damage the bushfires are causing in Australia is devastating. The burning is so widespread, it has now covered a swath of land roughly the size of the state of Maryland. More than a thousand homes have been destroyed, seventeen people have died, and a half billion animals have perished.
Nerilie Abram, an associate professor at the Research School fo Earth Sciences at the Australian National University, explains how climate change is contributing to the ferocity of the bushfires.
Of course, unusually hot summers have happened in the past; so have bad bushfire seasons. But the link between the current extremes and anthropogenic climate change is scientifically undisputable.
In 2019, the fires started in late August which is still considered winter in Australia. Usually, fire season is a summer issue which “typically peaks” in January and February. The continent has “warmed by one degree Celsius over the past century” which has increased evaporation. This change increases the intensity and the frequency at which bushfires occur.
Southeastern Australia has been in drought since 2017. Rainfall here is normally highly variable from year to year, but there have now been three winters in a row where the winter rains failed. This is a situation that has never been seen before in the historical record of Australia’s rainfall, even during infamous decade-long droughts such as the Millennium Drought. The severity of the current drought has caused large swathes of vegetation to die. It has even dried out wet rain forests, allowing fierce fires to take hold in places that would not normally burn.
Earlier this morning in Mallacoota.
"A mother took this photo. Her two primary school aged sons are in the boat with her. They're out on the Mallacoota lake trying to stay safe from fire, it doesn't look like it but it's daytime." - @ABCGippsland pic.twitter.com/WVi1Mz8dTz
— Sean Power (@seanpowerAU) December 31, 2019