The aborigines routinely burned grasslands and vegetation in many parts of northern Australia during the cool months of the dry season between winter monsoons. These controlled burns were intended to help stimulate regrowth during the upcoming rainy period. But they may have also inadvertently caused the end of that summer dry spell to be much warmer and drier than normal, a new study suggests.
The team’s results, published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, reveal substantial changes in climate during the premonsoon months of November and December. Total precipitation during these months declined by more than 3 centimeters. This may sound small, but those premonsoon rains are vital for the region’s ecological recovery after the dry season.
I remain sceptical – this sounds like non-science.
Sounds like a WAG to me and not even based on science.
It sounds plausible. (IMO removal of ground-cover vegetation is an anthopogenic affect that is ignored in the current panic about CO2) But all these people have done is make a “model”. What does that prove? (I notice that some of the comments below the linked article weren’t impressed either.)
They probably found the computer records that were kept about their “Controlled Burns” and why they did that.
The burns were most likely not controlled, accidental, or deliberate as a method of hunting. I could be wrong and the Aborigines knew more about controlled burns than Europeans and Americans did in the early 1900s.
Well, that was new – “winter monsoons”! Or did someone forget to adjust for the southern hemispnere?
From http://www.answers.com/topic/monsoon
1.A wind system that influences large climatic regions and reverses direction seasonally.
a.A wind from the southwest or south that brings heavy rainfall to southern Asia in the summer.
b.The rain that accompanies this wind.
.Grumpy Grampy 😉 says:
July 3, 2011 at 8:52 pm
“The burns were most likely not controlled, accidental, or deliberate as a method of hunting. I could be wrong and the Aborigines knew more about controlled burns than Europeans and Americans did in the early 1900s.”
Seems like they did
Aboriginal hunting and burning increase Australia’s desert biodiversity, Stanford researchers find
DOWNLOAD: Download Hypothesis The ‘Fire Stick Farming’ Hypothesis (pdf)
R. Bliege Bird, D. W. Bird, B. F. Codding, C. H. Parker, and J. H. Jones
Stanford Report stanford.edu April 29, 2010
A Stanford research team is exploring what makes aboriginal hunting grounds molded by fire more biologically diverse than lands untouched by humans.
In Australia, Martu hunter-gatherers light fires to expose the hiding places of their prey: monitor lizards called goanna that can grow up to 6 feet long. These generations-old hunting practices, part of the Martu day-to-day routine, have reshaped Australia’s Western Desert habitats, according to Stanford University anthropologists Douglas and Rebecca Bird.
I reread what I had written. I left out the key word “BUT”
The burns were most likely not controlled, BUT accidental, or deliberate as a method of hunting. I could be wrong and the Aborigines knew more about controlled burns as a way to improve the environment than Europeans and Americans did in the early 1900s.
That might make the statement more in line with my thoughts.
It is a five year old thing! Having a five year old visiting for 2 months shortens your attention span.
A General comment. There is a fair bit on fire in Australia, including aboriginal, in items at http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/tag/bushfires/page/3/
Check out David Ward (AKA Green Davy) for one