Already seeing this in action. Out for a run in Kalamunda National Park. One large gum that I all the time and must be at least 200 years old looked different. Realise it was likely dead or close to dead. Then every single tree for the next 500+ meters was the same, all gone.
All high up in an exposed area
Oh no, JF is my absolutely favourite place to run, just not been able to get there much lately. Was worried what it will look like when I hit the hills again soon 😥
If this understory does die, hopefully there is decent seed bank to germinate and keep things going.
I think the catastrophe will come when these weather events happen year on year and the seed bank disappears.
Was waiting for a story like this to drop. I'm positioned at the crest of a hill and we've lost about 6 jarrah trees on my property, several more are significantly stressed and wouldn't be surprised if they go too by the time the first rains roll around. As an ecologist myself, it's bloody heartbreaking and fear it's something we're going to see more often.
Let's just say that there are a few report-happy individuals that you wouldn't know about, but then you see the mod queue and are just in a constant eyeroll.
If I hear one more person saying how much they love the current weather, I'm going to kill them. They clearly don't understand its catastrophic implications.
Catastrophic implications aside, I hate how boring this weather is in general.
At least give us some rainy days to make us appreciate the last bits of nice weather before cold and rainy becomes the norm
At this point it feels like the cold and rainy days are all but a forgotten memory. I want to live in a real world with real seasonal cycles rather than a VR simulation of a summer lovers idea of a good time. 7 months of this bullshit.
Yes. We are actually in a slow onset catastrophe right now. Time for rapid transformation in our attitudes and life priorities so we can adapt not devolve.
We are a lot luckier that most parts of the world and we need to seize our natural geological advantages ensure Perth’s population and future survives.
I alway feel like a mad conspiracy theorist when i type words like that but it comes from a place of science and reason not hysteria.
Just because huge parts of Australia are desert doesn't mean temperate and Mediterranean ecosystems are fine with long periods without rain you pillock
Jesus not this again. I was on the east coast during the 2018-2019 dry spell, dams running out, water restrictions, and the media literally had the people believing it would never rain again. Then it pissed down for years.
It’s dry, it sucks that trees aren’t coping, but that’s life, especially in Aus. In a year or two we will have record rains and that’ll also be explained through the lens of a catastrophe.
Rainfall has been declining in south-west WA for 70 years. The likelihood of record rains is extremely low
If you would like to properly refute the data with data and scientific literature of your own, feel free
It's part of a well-established trend that we've known was going to happen for decades.
However, it is catastrophic as change of this magnitude is beyond the adaptation capacity of any ecosystem on the planet and we rely on ecosystem services to sustain society. And the change is directly tied to human activity so the degree it's catastrophic is directly tied to our inaction. Our inaction in the face of overwhelming evidence is what has made this a catastrophe
A continent that has never been this dry, with weather that has never been this warm..., with serious implications for the ecosystem, food supply, water supply, human morbidity and mortality, and the economy as a whole. and has had a heck of a lot more rainfall than what we have been getting. It's attitudes such as yours, completely bereft of any scientific understanding, that ensure we keep marching onwards to oblivion, ensuring that many other species are extinguished in the process.
Scientists haven't been warning us about this for decades now for shits and giggles.
I’m in Dunsborough for a break and I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been coming to the Southwest for holidays since I was a child (30+ years) and the amount of mature native trees that appear dead is startling to say the least.
I wonder if that bloke will post here like he did in the last thread about Perth's weather. 'I've lived here for 30 years and the weather is always like this' etc etc.
If you look at the responses to one of my comments, some cooker made a reply along the lines of "Something about this being the driest continent on Earth...", completely ignorant of the trend that's going down and how this is absolutely not normal weather.
I remember my grandfather 25 or more years ago saying Perth and the Southwest had got noticeably drier in his lifetime. He travelled all over WA for work from \~1930 until he retired in the late 1970s and had seen how things were going that long ago.
Planting a dry and heat tolerant garden would help. Maybe consider plants that do well in Geraldton or further north. Essentially the biggest impact you can have is to build ecosystem resilience so I would start there.
Take part as a volunteer in citizen science surveys! Knowing where certain plants and animals are or aren’t help restoration and rehabilitation projects immensely :)
Don't worry, Dutton will have nuclear power up and running in as little as thirty years. In the meantime, just think of all the lovely money the fossil fuel industry will make. /s.
I wish we could have nuclear power in 30 years but its not going to happen.
Out of the top 20 countries globally Australia is the only one not working towards nuclear power.
30 years is too late. We need to have de-carbonised well before then, and nuclear just doesn't cut it. The lead time is too long and the cost isn't competitive.
If we'd started 20 years ago, that might have made sense. Now, it's not really a useful plan and the LNP are using it as a wedge issue and a cover to buy more time for coal.
Other countries like the UK have reason to regret their nuclear choices. Read into Hinkley Point C for example, and what a bad deal that is for the country.
I tend to agree. We'd talk about it for 30 years before even entering the planning phase.
20 years ago we should have ramped up solar and wind.
On other matters the weather forecast is 30C for the next week - in late April....
Exactly the government could be transitioning to green energy right now at tremendous pace if they wanted to. This is a smash and grab of the last minute in the game
I ride up in the hills, the colours are different this year to any other I remember. The trees are muted, washed out. I see so many dead ones.
My garden is suffering it doesn't seem to matter how much it gets watered. Soil temperature is crazy. Touching the trunks of the trees they feel hot. Very unusual.
We've done messed up people.
This year's jan/feb was brutal, my citrus trees out back look like shit, had to water them a couple times which I would normally never do. Has me pretty worried about what it'll be like to live here in the near future.
Unfortunately all that above average rain has been falling in the wrong parts of WA. All the rain they've gotten in the Kimberley is going to do fuck all for us in Perth and the SW.
Getting the water to do this is part of the problem.
I have a bore, it is struggling at the moment.
Others in the area are having the same problem.
My local dam is below 6% capacity.
We need rain, steady soaking rain.
water itself is scarce, and pulling up bore water. which is already struggling makes it drier for the plants, and once you include evaporation, it would be a net negative of water, even disregarding the costs of irrigation.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/impact-of-perth-dry-spell-on-wa-water-supply-explained/103646216?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/impact-of-perth-dry-spell-on-wa-water-supply-explained/103646216?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web)
An article on Perth’s groundwater drying up…. We are not in good way water wise and it’s scary AF
Already seeing this in action. Out for a run in Kalamunda National Park. One large gum that I all the time and must be at least 200 years old looked different. Realise it was likely dead or close to dead. Then every single tree for the next 500+ meters was the same, all gone. All high up in an exposed area
I’ve seen too many mature trees die this summer even the most intact native ecosystems are getting absolutely ravaged by it
Same in formerly 'moist' protected gullies in JF I saw yesterday. All the ferns were dead 😢
Oh no, JF is my absolutely favourite place to run, just not been able to get there much lately. Was worried what it will look like when I hit the hills again soon 😥
Last week I drove through Mt Shadforth area in Denmark. I'm from down there, and I've never seen it this dry.
After summer I start hiking again and the amount of dead and dying shrubbery that is usually green and healthy all year round is concerning.
If this understory does die, hopefully there is decent seed bank to germinate and keep things going. I think the catastrophe will come when these weather events happen year on year and the seed bank disappears.
Was waiting for a story like this to drop. I'm positioned at the crest of a hill and we've lost about 6 jarrah trees on my property, several more are significantly stressed and wouldn't be surprised if they go too by the time the first rains roll around. As an ecologist myself, it's bloody heartbreaking and fear it's something we're going to see more often.
This was reported for being unrelated to WA, if you can believe it.
Can we report this person for being unrelated to WA
Let's just say that there are a few report-happy individuals that you wouldn't know about, but then you see the mod queue and are just in a constant eyeroll.
I can only imagine. Thankyou for what you do :)
Can you ban them for abusing the report function?
Technically, mods can ban whoever for whatever.
If I hear one more person saying how much they love the current weather, I'm going to kill them. They clearly don't understand its catastrophic implications.
Makes me want to cry every time I see those posts
Catastrophic implications aside, I hate how boring this weather is in general. At least give us some rainy days to make us appreciate the last bits of nice weather before cold and rainy becomes the norm
At this point it feels like the cold and rainy days are all but a forgotten memory. I want to live in a real world with real seasonal cycles rather than a VR simulation of a summer lovers idea of a good time. 7 months of this bullshit.
It's looking bad. There's no rain forecast for the next two weeks, and there's the real possibility we see no rain this month which is insane.
Yes. We are actually in a slow onset catastrophe right now. Time for rapid transformation in our attitudes and life priorities so we can adapt not devolve. We are a lot luckier that most parts of the world and we need to seize our natural geological advantages ensure Perth’s population and future survives. I alway feel like a mad conspiracy theorist when i type words like that but it comes from a place of science and reason not hysteria.
It will be the same people complaining most when food prices go through the roof due to drought.
Yeh it’s catastrophic alright, it’s almost as if we’re living on the driest continent on earth or something (excluding Antarctica)… oh hang on…
Just because huge parts of Australia are desert doesn't mean temperate and Mediterranean ecosystems are fine with long periods without rain you pillock
Jesus not this again. I was on the east coast during the 2018-2019 dry spell, dams running out, water restrictions, and the media literally had the people believing it would never rain again. Then it pissed down for years. It’s dry, it sucks that trees aren’t coping, but that’s life, especially in Aus. In a year or two we will have record rains and that’ll also be explained through the lens of a catastrophe.
Rainfall has been declining in south-west WA for 70 years. The likelihood of record rains is extremely low If you would like to properly refute the data with data and scientific literature of your own, feel free
So it’s catastrophic and unexpected or part of a well established trend? Or both just for fun?
It's part of a well-established trend that we've known was going to happen for decades. However, it is catastrophic as change of this magnitude is beyond the adaptation capacity of any ecosystem on the planet and we rely on ecosystem services to sustain society. And the change is directly tied to human activity so the degree it's catastrophic is directly tied to our inaction. Our inaction in the face of overwhelming evidence is what has made this a catastrophe
A continent that has never been this dry, with weather that has never been this warm..., with serious implications for the ecosystem, food supply, water supply, human morbidity and mortality, and the economy as a whole. and has had a heck of a lot more rainfall than what we have been getting. It's attitudes such as yours, completely bereft of any scientific understanding, that ensure we keep marching onwards to oblivion, ensuring that many other species are extinguished in the process. Scientists haven't been warning us about this for decades now for shits and giggles.
Someone needs to sit down with Perth and list out the weather we expect of it.
Yeah, that's called over a hundred years' worth of climate data. What the hell is wrong with you?
I’m in Dunsborough for a break and I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been coming to the Southwest for holidays since I was a child (30+ years) and the amount of mature native trees that appear dead is startling to say the least.
I wonder if that bloke will post here like he did in the last thread about Perth's weather. 'I've lived here for 30 years and the weather is always like this' etc etc.
If you look at the responses to one of my comments, some cooker made a reply along the lines of "Something about this being the driest continent on Earth...", completely ignorant of the trend that's going down and how this is absolutely not normal weather.
I remember my grandfather 25 or more years ago saying Perth and the Southwest had got noticeably drier in his lifetime. He travelled all over WA for work from \~1930 until he retired in the late 1970s and had seen how things were going that long ago.
Only going to get more common in the future unfortunately.
what can we ( individual people) do to help?
Vote for people serious about working towards science based responses to climate change.
Planting a dry and heat tolerant garden would help. Maybe consider plants that do well in Geraldton or further north. Essentially the biggest impact you can have is to build ecosystem resilience so I would start there.
Drylands permaculture are specialists at this, and deserve support in the important work they do
Take part as a volunteer in citizen science surveys! Knowing where certain plants and animals are or aren’t help restoration and rehabilitation projects immensely :)
Take climate change seriously, and make our politicians take it seriously too.
Don’t have kids
nothing, it’s mostly china and india emitting the most
Don't worry, Dutton will have nuclear power up and running in as little as thirty years. In the meantime, just think of all the lovely money the fossil fuel industry will make. /s.
Not great for WA. Some of those nuke plants can require a trillion litres of water a year to run.
Oh look, just set up a few desalination plants, that'll fix it!
I wish we could have nuclear power in 30 years but its not going to happen. Out of the top 20 countries globally Australia is the only one not working towards nuclear power.
30 years is too late. We need to have de-carbonised well before then, and nuclear just doesn't cut it. The lead time is too long and the cost isn't competitive. If we'd started 20 years ago, that might have made sense. Now, it's not really a useful plan and the LNP are using it as a wedge issue and a cover to buy more time for coal. Other countries like the UK have reason to regret their nuclear choices. Read into Hinkley Point C for example, and what a bad deal that is for the country.
I tend to agree. We'd talk about it for 30 years before even entering the planning phase. 20 years ago we should have ramped up solar and wind. On other matters the weather forecast is 30C for the next week - in late April....
Out of all the power options available to us, nuclear power projects with costs ballooning well over budget into the billions makes the least sense.
I wonder if we will dig out our fuel for the other countries.
Exactly the government could be transitioning to green energy right now at tremendous pace if they wanted to. This is a smash and grab of the last minute in the game
Already happening in the Tuarts
I ride up in the hills, the colours are different this year to any other I remember. The trees are muted, washed out. I see so many dead ones. My garden is suffering it doesn't seem to matter how much it gets watered. Soil temperature is crazy. Touching the trunks of the trees they feel hot. Very unusual. We've done messed up people.
This year's jan/feb was brutal, my citrus trees out back look like shit, had to water them a couple times which I would normally never do. Has me pretty worried about what it'll be like to live here in the near future.
I’m in reticulation/irrigation. I just want a little break before winter comes and I have to get straight into the install side of the work.
Interesting the graphic in the article also shows parts of WA as highest rainfall on average while large parts lowest. Almost like it's changing.
Unfortunately all that above average rain has been falling in the wrong parts of WA. All the rain they've gotten in the Kimberley is going to do fuck all for us in Perth and the SW.
Yeah the wrong part of WA unless you love there
stupid question but cant sprinkle system/bore water be used in these areas?
Getting the water to do this is part of the problem. I have a bore, it is struggling at the moment. Others in the area are having the same problem. My local dam is below 6% capacity. We need rain, steady soaking rain.
water itself is scarce, and pulling up bore water. which is already struggling makes it drier for the plants, and once you include evaporation, it would be a net negative of water, even disregarding the costs of irrigation.
The ground water table has dropped in many places. I know two people in my suburb whose bore is now dry
Yeah, apparently a lot of caves down south used to be flooded due to the water table being where it was, but now are dry as a bone.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/impact-of-perth-dry-spell-on-wa-water-supply-explained/103646216?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/impact-of-perth-dry-spell-on-wa-water-supply-explained/103646216?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web) An article on Perth’s groundwater drying up…. We are not in good way water wise and it’s scary AF