Bush fires are by no means alien to Australia. They are a yearly occurrence which has been taking place for centuries if not millennia. In southeast Australia, bush fires are most common and most severe in the summer and autumn months. Southeast Australia is fire-prone, and warm and dry conditions intensify the probability of fires. This year’s bush fires are regarded by some as one of the worst bush fire seasons in memory. When compared to the previous seasons, this year’s bush fires have burned an estimated 6.3 million hectares of bush (about 185 times the size of the Maltese Islands), destroyed over 2,500 buildings and killed 25 people as of 5 January 2020. So far, it is estimated that close to half a billion animals were impacted by the ongoing fires.

Why is this year’s bush fire season the worst in memory?

In the second half of 2019, Australia experienced a record-breaking heatwave. The record of the average temperature across the country was broken twice. The first was of 40.9°C, followed by 41.9°C. The prior record was set in 2013. This meteorological situation has led to Australia experiencing one of its worst droughts. There was an occasion back in 2019, when the whole of Australia experienced a day when not a single drop of rain was measured anywhere. It was the first time since the 1800s that this happened. This meteorological situation has partly been brought about by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. The Indian Ocean Dipole is an irregular variation in the sea-surface temperatures across the western Indian Ocean. The western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer (positive phase) and colder (negative phase) than the eastern part of the ocean. A positive phase sees above-average sea-surface temperatures and greater precipitation in the western Indian Ocean region, with a corresponding cooling of waters for the eastern Indian Ocean region. This tends to cause droughts across the adjacent land areas of Indonesia and Australia. The cooler waters across the eastern Indian Ocean region weaken winds over there, reducing significantly the amount of moisture picked up and transported across Australia https://polska-ed.com/kupic-generic-cialis/. The consequence is well below average rainfall across south-east Australia.