And with the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO's latest biannual report on
the climate observing
"a more tangible shift in the extremes", questions are emerging about what the summers of the future may hold.
"The idea that we can use the past as a reliable index for the future has sort
of been dynamited at the foundations," says David Bowman, a fire ecologist at
the University of Tasmania, "because we're seeing such extreme unpredictable
things."
'We're talking about really major extremes'
It was around this time last year — just as a series of bushfires that would
later be known as Black Summer were beginning to escalate — that Bowman was
fielding calls from journalists.
"The year 2020 has been historic in the sense of completely reframing how our
modern civilization feels about its place in the environment," he says.
"And certainly the catastrophic bushfires in Australia, and again, in California
... they've all underscored that the earth system is responding to global
heating."
Last summer's fires
claimed the lives of 33 people,
garnering international headlines and prompting an outpouring of donations and
support in the months shortly after. But Bowman believes the coronavirus
pandemic "papered over the shock of the bushfires".
Now, as we enter a new summer, "all those anxieties and unfinished business is
bubbling up in a way that's different", he says.
"Because during the pandemic — and during winter, strangely — bushfires felt a
long way away," he says. "The declaration of a La Nina, I think, was a bit of a
false flag game that sort of provided a sense that we were going to be avoiding
bushfires."
Bowman points to the K'gari-Fraser Island blaze, which burnt through nearly half
the World Heritage-listed site before being
contained by heavy rain.
The problem, he says, is "the lining up of the heatwaves and the flooding
events".
Water bombers attempting to contain Fraser Island bushfire.
"Unfortunately, what happened in south-east Queensland is that there was this
stupendous heatwave that enabled a fire to occur during a La Nina year," he
says, adding: "We wouldn't have predicted such an intense fire".
"And now, literally in days, it switched from an uncontrolled bushfire burning
Fraser Island to this side of a category one cyclone in southern Queensland
and northern New South Wales.
"So ... we're talking about really
major extremes."
Rodger Tomlinson, director of the Griffith Centre for Coastal Management at
Griffith University, says areas like Byron Bay —
where he has been studying erosion more broadly
— were "hit very badly" by the major storm system.
"Generally speaking, if we're going to have more storms, we're going to see
more coastal erosion, more rainfall and wet weather, such as we've been
seeing," he says.
An erosion-damaged disabled access to Clarkes Beach at Byron Bay.
(AAP: Dan Peled)
Asked if today's beaches will be the same in a few decades' time, Tomlinson
says there is a risk of change in areas "particularly vulnerable to
increased storminess, or if there's no management strategies to keep pace
with those events".
"But the general projections in the long-term is that we will see changes to
our coastal environments due to climate change," he says.
The key to preserving these coastlines for summers to come, Tomlinson says,
will come down to our ability to adapt.
Sea walls are one option, he says — noting that they have been unpopular in
the past — as is the long-term possibility communities may need to "be moved
away from that erosion".
Storm causes erosion and sea foam at Tugun on the Gold Coast.
"But that's very problematic, and there's no evidence of that being
seriously considered anywhere on our coast," he says.
"After the floods in 2011, in the Lockyer Valley, the community of Grantham
was relocated to higher ground. But applying that kind of a process on the
coast is a lot more difficult, mainly because of the intensity of
development in nice locations."
Looking — and planning — ahead
As communities in northern and eastern Australia
prepare for a wet summer
— vastly different scenes to those witnessed just a year ago — Bowman
cautions we are not out of the woods yet.
"What happened on Fraser Island is that the order was wrong. It just got
this incredible heatwave, then it got the rain."
Reflecting on the Black Summer bushfires, Bowman believes political leaders
need to look beyond simply funding new firefighting equipment, and invest in
bushfire mitigation strategies for future.
"Really, where I'm at 12 months on, is not asking 'Was there a royal
commission? Was there soul searching? Was there grief and anxiety?" he says.
"All of those things are absolutely true. But what we haven't done is
committed to an adaptation pathway."
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