Centre set to swelter as biggest heatwave in decades settles in:
A swath of central Australia stretching from Oodnadatta to Coober Pedy and Birdsville can expect maximum temperatures of 45 degrees or hotter for at least a week. Towns to the south and east, such as Mildura and Hay, can expect to broil with 40-degree maximum temperatures for just as long.
''We have a major heat event under way,'' Karl Braganza, a manager of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology, said.
''There are not many instances in the historical record where you get a heat event covering such a large area of the continent.''
Published Comment:
The post from The Mercury,well named,nails down exactly where we are at this critical time.
"Warming
of 4-6C is truly unknown territory. We know, however, that crops
needing cool conditions to grow, including the global staples of wheat,
rye and barley, are especially vulnerable. Such warming would see
Australia lose whole food-producing regions well before 2100.
By
2100, we'd have had to adjust to increasingly intense droughts and
flooding, and life in most of inland Australia would have become
intolerable. Tasmanian temperatures would be similar to those in
northern NSW, and mosquito-borne subtropical diseases would have spread
south, at least as far as Victoria."
And this post,"Centre set to swelter as biggest heatwave in decades settles in",makes it look all too real.
Then there's this : "Broome sets record for high temperatures"
"Broome has recorded its hottest ever December since records began.
The
Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed the daily maximum temperatures
averaged 36.3 degrees, breaking the previous record set in 1951.
Forecaster Patrick Ward says it was an uncomfortably warm period throughout the West Kimberley.
"Broome
airport scored it's hottest ever December, about two-and-a-half degrees
above average, and hottest day for the month for 43 degrees on the
ninth," he said.
"In terms of rainfall, about half the normal amount for a December."
I
remember people making comments several years ago about,"these climate
change predictions are very depressing,especially when we think of the
world we will hand to our kids - it's terrible.And here in Broome and
the peninsular we have the double nightmare of the worlds most polluting
gas plant to deal with on top of that."
And it seems the JPP gas
plant plan has become a giant symbol of all that is wrong with
totalitarian encroachment,something people all over the world can point
to and say,"That is wrong,that is why life on this planet is dieing,why
life will not be worth living for future generations."
And it does seem strange that our little camping and fishing spot has found such fame.
Of course to the true keepers of the law and culture for that place it is a tragedy beyond words.
I
think it would be true to say that in the minds of a lot of people it
seems that if JPP,Walmadany,is saved there is some hope of turning this
awful situation around.
But if Woodside,Barnett and others get their way then all is lost for all life as we know it on our Mother Earth.
And not just for the kids that will have to live in the shadow of this abomination.