Australia Firestorm 1 of 4 - BBC My Country Documentary

Australia Firestorm 1 of 4 - BBC My Country Documentary, recorded 03.04.2010

Bushfires are an expected hazard for the people who live in the Australian state of Victoria, but the scale of the weekend's disaster has left everyone shocked.

Scientists understand the processes which trigger fires all too well and recent conditions have been shown to be frighteningly perfect.

It has been extremely warm with temperatures over 40C. Strong winds have also been blowing from the interior of the continent.

"In south-east Australia, bad fire days are associated with the presence of a 'blocking' high pressure system in the Tasman Sea. This brings hot, dry strong wind from the centre of the continent to the south-east," said Andrew Sullivan, a fire researcher with Australia's lead scientific agency, CSIRO.

"The high temperatures and dry air experienced throughout Victoria on Saturday resulted in very low fuel moisture content. Combined with the extended rainfall deficit for much of the state, this resulted in tinder-dry fuel that was very easily ignited and very difficult to extinguish."

'Fire weather'

The region has been in the grip of the "Big Dry" - the worst drought in a century.

Last week, a group of Australian researchers produced a report in which they said a dominant factor behind this extended dry period was a phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole.

This is said to relate to a flip-flop pattern of ocean temperatures found to the west and north of the Australian continent.

In the "negative" phase, cool waters rule off the west of the continent and warm waters dominate in the Timor Sea to the north. This produces winds that pick up moisture from the ocean and sweep it down towards southern Australia to deliver cool, wet conditions.

In the "positive" phase, the pattern of ocean temperatures is reversed. The winds are weaker, they cannot pick up so much moisture, and south-eastern Australia experiences drier conditions. The consequences of attempting to work against Nature, by trying to prevent any fires at all, can be catastrophic




The problem, the team from the University of New South Wales said, was that the dipole seemed to be stuck in its "positive" phase.

The researchers studied long data sets to show correlations not just between current events but also the major droughts at the beginning of the 20th Century and during the WWII.

The dipole idea is not universally accepted among climatologists. Many see the El Nino phenomenon centred on the Pacific as being the most important signal.

One of the inevitable questions is how climate change might affect such natural cycles. Scientists will investigate the links further and use powerful computer models to try to tease out the probabilities.

Current climate projections point to an increase in fire-weather risk from warmer and drier conditions.

Two simulations used by Australia's lead scientific agency, CSIRO, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology point to the number of days with very high and extreme fire danger ratings increasing by some 4-25% by 2020, and 15-70% by 2050.

The agencies' Climate Change in Australia report cites the example of Canberra which may be looking at an annual average of 26-29 very high or extreme fire danger days by 2020 and 28-38 days by 2050.

For more information, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7879141.stm .

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[jimmyson2007]

Ha, The ABC and the BBC working together.

Well the ABC was launched to be like the BBC

[RuniTravel]

@jimmyson2007 > And soo ?? Did the Forest Fire Stop in time ???

[jimmyson2007]

@RuniTravel Sorry, just a sper of the moment!