Heavy rainfall and widespread flooding across Australia’s east coast from 2020 to 2022 was exacerbated by the Black Summer bushfires, a new study has found.
New research links bushfire smoke to extra cloud cover over the southeastern Pacific Ocean and cooler sea surface temperatures, which then influenced La Nina.
Eastern Australia experienced several years of disastrous flooding during the cold weather event.
The research, published in Science Advances, shows the Black Summer bushfires in 2019 to 2020 emitted as many aerosols into the atmosphere as major volcanic eruptions.
It is the first time a bushfire has been big enough to impact climate models, according to UNSW Climate Change Research Centre Adjunct Fellow Dr Tom Mortlock.
He said years of above-average rainfall and fewer bushfires since the crisis meant there was now a significant amount of fuel growth ready to burn when warmer weather comes along in the form of El Nino.
“Bushfire losses are correlated to periods of El Nino,” Dr Mortlock said.
“There is now a 60 per cent chance that El Nino will begin to form this winter, peaking in spring and summer.”
– AAP
