Bushfire season 2023-2024

With El Niño and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, Australia is bracing for a hot and dry summer. With a lot of fuel load from the last three growing years, the country is a tinderbox waiting to be sparked off.

A positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) plus El Niño in Australia likely to cause hot and dry weather

Quote:

While El Niño dominates the headlines, a lesser-known climate influence is rapidly forming to our west, and is likely to bring hot and dry weather to Australia for the remainder of the year. A positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is the Indian Ocean's version of El Niño, and typically brings reduced rainfall and an increase in temperatures through winter and spring. The index used to monitor the Indian Ocean surged to 0.79 last week, the highest value in four years, which is nearly double the threshold for a positive phase. If values above 0.4 are sustained for eight weeks, as predicted by all modelling, then 2023 becomes a positive IOD year, the first since 2019.

2019, you will remember, was the year of the catastrophic fires in which much of the eastern half of the country was ablaze.

It's looking to be a bad year.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/4EPhibB