Monday, 7 October 2019

Wow it's hot

We're now in mid-spring - the equivalent of mid-April in the northern hemisphere. I've just looked at my mobile phone and received a shock. Here we are at 1000+ m above sea level, roughly the same height as Mt Snowdon in Wales, and the temperature recorded is 32 C (about 90 F)!

We have had steadily rising temperatures in recent weeks and nearly all have been way above average for this time of year. When I awoke at 6 am this morning the temperature was already 18 C (nearly 65 F).

And another climate concern is our rainfall, which is only running at one-third of the usual amount by this time of year. Many of the plants in our garden are struggling to survive the combination of heat and drought and the fine grasses we tried to maintain in our lawn are now mostly dead also.

All this means that Armidale has had great water restrictions imposed by Council in the hope that the c. 43% of remaining water in the town's Malpas dam can keep us going until the end of 2020. We can't (or shouldn't) water lawns, take showers longer than 3 minutes, wash cars (except for windscreens), and so on. We're doing better than most rural towns, many of which have already run out of water and are having to bring in train-loads (or truck-loads) of the stuff.

What's gone wrong? Well the climate conditions over most of Australia are wildly different to usual. The high pressure systems which typically sit over the centre of the continent in winter were often displaced up to 1500 km south this year. This meant that the frontal systems in the southern ocean that usual bring us winter rain were deflected a long way south and had no impact here. So, over the last two months our rainfall only amounted to about 3 mm - i.e. next to nothing.

And this outcome seems to lie with the waters of the north-east Indian ocean, which are much colder than usual. Similar malfunctions of climate systems seem to have occurred all over the world - places hotter or colder, or alternatively drier or wetter, than usual. And some people are claiming that climate change is not occurring!? Our current drought is the worst ever recorded for our region.

And it seems to have some interesting side effects. We have 3 bird-feeders in our garden, all topped up daily. But the number and types of birds we welcome here have changed. We're getting far fewer of our feathered friends visit us and some species, particularly Galahs, have almost deserted us. They used to be the dominant species, but that's no longer the case. Are they dead? Or have they migrated to locations with much more water? Given the shortage of natural bird-seed we were expecting long queues in the trees around our garden awaiting their turn to feed! It's sad not to see so many of
them.

AS

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