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Australia: 'What could I have done?' The scientist who predicted the bushfire emergency four decades ago

Source(s): Guardian, the (UK)
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By Graham Readfearn

[…]

Back in 1986, Beer was working as a CSIRO meteorologist looking at bushfires when he was asked by his boss, Dr Graeme Pearman, to go and find out what the greenhouse effect might mean for the future of fires.

Beer’s findings in 1987, published in 1988 as “Australian bushfire danger under changing climatic regimes”, became the first study in the world to ask what climate change was going to mean for wildfires.

[…]

With months of firefighting ahead of them, fire chiefs are starting to worry about the fatigue and stress on volunteer firefighters. Now, as more dangerous fire weather is forecast, Beer and Pearman are asking what else they could have done as scientists who were sounding the early warning bells for the current suffering. Why did the science not lead to action?

[…]

Beer says the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983 had driven interest inside CSIRO for research. A national bushfire research unit was established, and he moved to Melbourne to work.

[...]

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Hazards Wildfire
Themes Early warning Risk identification and assessment
Country and region Australia

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