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Fires have devastated the south of the state of Tasmania
Greetings from Sydney, Australia.
Fires have devastated the south of the state of Tasmania, and scores of people are still missing. Meanwhile, hundreds of fires are currently burning across the eastern half of the country, including more than 20 that are listed as uncontained in NSW alone.
Outside my hotel in the city it’s currently about 106 degrees (41C), and quite like sitting in an oven. A breeze seems to be starting up, but at the moment it’s just moving hot air around. Temperatures at Fowlers Gap, near Broken Hill in the state’s far west, reached 111.5 degrees (44.2C) at 2pm.
As the air mass over central Australia continues to heat up, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has had to introduce new colors to their forecast maps (shown above for later in the week) for temperatures in excess of 122 degrees (50C).
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/01/07/open-thread-its-hot-damn-hot/
Fires have devastated the south of the state of Tasmania, and scores of people are still missing. Meanwhile, hundreds of fires are currently burning across the eastern half of the country, including more than 20 that are listed as uncontained in NSW alone.
Outside my hotel in the city it’s currently about 106 degrees (41C), and quite like sitting in an oven. A breeze seems to be starting up, but at the moment it’s just moving hot air around. Temperatures at Fowlers Gap, near Broken Hill in the state’s far west, reached 111.5 degrees (44.2C) at 2pm.
As the air mass over central Australia continues to heat up, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has had to introduce new colors to their forecast maps (shown above for later in the week) for temperatures in excess of 122 degrees (50C).
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/01/07/open-thread-its-hot-damn-hot/
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
They're doing it to themselves.
On the *possible* plus side:
Unusually for a eucalyptus, it tends not to recover by re-shooting after fire, and regenerates only from seed. The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. If, however, no fires regenerate an area, the trees die off after about 400 years and are replaced by other species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_regnans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_regnans
http://www.humboldt.edu/redwoods/photos/eucalyptus.php <-- the last 8 photos show the forests in Tasmania after a fire