The Daily Blog Open Mic – 23rd August 2023

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018903664/after-a-summer-of-cyclones-are-we-ready-for-a-summer-of-wildfires
…”Everyone’s going to have to start wrapping their mind around this new natural hazard,” says University of Tasmania professor of pyrogeography and fire science David Bowman.
“You’re very good at earthquakes and floods – fantastically adaptable people. It’s just – damn! It’s another thing you’re going to have to start factoring in as the climate changes.”

The Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ reported in 2020 that New Zealand’s fire danger is projected to increase by an average of 70 percent by 2040.
In the northern hemisphere, countless wildfires have started and spread viciously amid a summer of record temperatures – including in Greece, and most recently, in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina.

Bowman says both events were the result of “dysfunctional landscapes”. In Greece, decades of urban drift saw swathes of once-cultivated countryside left abandoned and overgrown, allowing fire to spread relatively unimpeded.

“And in the Hawaiian situation, it’s a completely different scenario. The traditional Hawaiians had cultivated things, were living on country, and that all got disrupted by plantations.
“All of these [foreign] grasses were introduced and they’ve just gone feral … this happened across the Pacific. These grasses enter into what’s known as a grass fire cycle. Grasses proliferate, they burn into woody vegetation, incinerate the woody vegetation, the woody vegetation is poorly adapted to fire, then you just get more and more grass. It feeds off the ash from the woody trees.”

Bowman says the prospect of increasing wildfire incidence is going to be tough for New Zealanders to deal with.
“New Zealand has got a lot of grass, and a lot of plantations, eucalypts and pine. It’s also got wild trees which have escaped into the grasslands. As you warm the climate … those fuel types are going to become really challenging.”…

This is interesting I haven’t heard about the grass factor. But I do know when I try and catch up on weeding that I wish I had never bought baled hay for mulch. I introduced tall growing grass with big roots that weren’t there before.

4 COMMENTS

covid is pa August 23, 2023 At 11:41 am

National donor to Luxon, ‘Can I have 8 million dollars’ worth of lollies please.
Greywarbler August 23, 2023 At 5:03 pm

A nice piece of good news,
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/496398/raro-the-dog-rescued-from-huge-swells-in-northland-waters
Greywarbler August 23, 2023 At 5:04 pm

An economic piece high up in the ranking.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2308/S00213/financial-literacy-compound-interest-and-the-veneration-of-money.htm
Greywarbler August 23, 2023 At 5:21 pm

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018903664/after-a-summer-of-cyclones-are-we-ready-for-a-summer-of-wildfires
…”Everyone’s going to have to start wrapping their mind around this new natural hazard,” says University of Tasmania professor of pyrogeography and fire science David Bowman.
“You’re very good at earthquakes and floods – fantastically adaptable people. It’s just – damn! It’s another thing you’re going to have to start factoring in as the climate changes.”

The Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ reported in 2020 that New Zealand’s fire danger is projected to increase by an average of 70 percent by 2040.
In the northern hemisphere, countless wildfires have started and spread viciously amid a summer of record temperatures – including in Greece, and most recently, in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina.

Bowman says both events were the result of “dysfunctional landscapes”. In Greece, decades of urban drift saw swathes of once-cultivated countryside left abandoned and overgrown, allowing fire to spread relatively unimpeded.

“And in the Hawaiian situation, it’s a completely different scenario. The traditional Hawaiians had cultivated things, were living on country, and that all got disrupted by plantations.
“All of these [foreign] grasses were introduced and they’ve just gone feral … this happened across the Pacific. These grasses enter into what’s known as a grass fire cycle. Grasses proliferate, they burn into woody vegetation, incinerate the woody vegetation, the woody vegetation is poorly adapted to fire, then you just get more and more grass. It feeds off the ash from the woody trees.”

Bowman says the prospect of increasing wildfire incidence is going to be tough for New Zealanders to deal with.
“New Zealand has got a lot of grass, and a lot of plantations, eucalypts and pine. It’s also got wild trees which have escaped into the grasslands. As you warm the climate … those fuel types are going to become really challenging.”…

This is interesting I haven’t heard about the grass factor. But I do know when I try and catch up on weeding that I wish I had never bought baled hay for mulch. I introduced tall growing grass with big roots that weren’t there before.

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