Episode 306. La Nina Times 3

This is The ChangeUnderground for the 22nd of August 2022.

I’m your host, Jon Moore

Decarbonise the Air, Recarbonise the Soil!

A quick varroa update.

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🐝 Varroa mite emergency response daily update Saturday 20th August 2022🐝

🐝 The Varroa mite eradication focus is now moving into the euthanasia and disposal phase of the response having successfully conducted extensive surveillance around the perimeter of the zone.

This next phase of eradication includes the Newcastle, Port Stephens and Central Coast regions. It will begin on the outer edges of the Varroa mite eradication zones and work towards the centre, with the first major operation taking place around Calga.

Affected beekeepers will be contacted by the local response team to confirm details of hives and discuss disposal and reimbursement options.

For more detail visit www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/varroa

🐝 No new detections

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Fingers, toes and all other parts crossed that this outbreak has been stopped dead.

As you will recall we had a black summer here in the antipodes during 2019/2020. Since the drought broke in the winter of 2020, we’ve been under the influence of twin climatic events: The Indian Ocean Dipole and La Nina events in the Pacific. The Indian Ocean Dipole is based upon temperature differences across the Indian Ocean. Currently and for the past two years it’s been in its positive phase. This means warmer water off the north west coast of Western Australia and cooler waters in the western half of the Indian Ocean. This has the effect of drawing moisture laden air over the continent and so more rain. The weather patterns are such that these rains tend to flow across the continent from the north west to south east. Rain in the Kimberly, through the red centre and down into the more populated areas of NSW and Victoria and yes even onto little Tassie as we sit at the end of this line of clouds and rain streaming across the continent. Over on the east coast, the La Nina event has a similar effect. Warmer waters in the western Pacific and cooler waters over near South America again draws moisture laden winds onto the eastern states.

The first year of this was great. Droughts broken, reservoirs refilled and soil moisture levels increased. It did lead to some once in a hundred year floods in areas where floods have occurred before. One of Mrs ChangeUnderground’s sons was flooded out two weeks after he’d moved onto a property on the Hawkesbury River. It happens. He upped stumps and moved to Perth so there’s that. Similarly, the town of Lismore in northern NSW flooded, not an unusual event. I went to school outside Lismore and the playing fields would quite often become lakes, cutting us off from the outside world.

Lismore had 24 severe flooding events from 1887 to the year 2000. Since then there’s been six this century. In those twenty years, 16 have been in drought. So basically for every one of the six wet years, a one in hundred year flood has turned up. This year, February the 28th saw the town under water with the highest recorded flood level since records began. On the 30th of March 2022 the third highest or thereabouts flood hit just after a month of clean up.

La Nina’s are not fun for those in flood prone areas. So this article from Nature, 23rd June 2022 by Nicola Jones entitled: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely — what does the future hold?, does not bode well.

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Meteorologists are forecasting a third consecutive year of La Niña. Some researchers say similar conditions could become more common as the planet warms.

An ongoing La Niña event that has contributed to flooding in eastern Australia and exacerbated droughts in the United States and East Africa could persist into 2023, according to the latest forecasts. The occurrence of two consecutive La Niña winters in the Northern Hemisphere is common, but having three in a row is relatively rare. A ‘triple dip’ La Niña — lasting three years in a row — has happened only twice since 1950.

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Not only are we likely to see more rains here in the antipodes but the drought in the south western areas of the US look set to continue and more flooding is likely in South East Asia. As for Europe and its summer of heat waves, I could not find anything to suggest what effects these events could have.

Buckle up, save water where you can because inevitably it will be in short supply somewhere. Prepare for both floods and wildfires which is a crazy thing to contemplate but we are living in unusual times, as they say.

Some have been suggesting on the news sites I peruse that La Nina could become the norm with climate change, individuals were also saying permanent drought would be our lot before the last one broke so who’s to know.

If we throw in the pandemic, a European war that could escalate at any moment, sabre rattling over Taiwan, the increasingly dysfunctional political situation in democracies from here to the US to the UK, the rise of illiberal governments in Hungry, Poland, Burma and whole shite show that is Yemen, North Africa, Palestine and Syria, it’s a wonder any of us get out of bed in the morning. But we do!

As gardeners we have some cards up our sleeves. We can create microclimates or make use of the ones around us. A goodly use of these will allow us to grow much of our food needs if push comes to shove. I’m not a doomsday prepper type. The last few years has shown that Black Swan events can and do pop up with some regularity. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to have a safety net or a fall back position on hand.

Soooo, as I’ve said before, growing a multi species food garden may well be the most revolutionary thing we can do, right now that actually makes the world a better place.

Certainly a world with better flavour. So let’s all grow some food.

If you’d like help, the discount is still on for the No-Dig garden Course now over at the ChangeUnderground Academy. There’s a new link in the show notes. Still currently selling for $17 dollars. Please tell your friends!

Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!

Thank you all for listening and I’ll be back next week.

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LINKS

No Dig Quick Start Course

https://changeunderground.net/the-no-dig-gardening-course/