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Sydney air pollution from bushfire smoke is just fucking post-apocalyptic today

Jintor

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,433
you might have heard that pretty much all of new south wales and southern queensland is on fire. well depending on the winds a lot of that smog gets pitched across various city centres and right now sydney is getting it

fire alarms are triggering across the city just from ambient pollution, you can't see like two blocks ahead of you. Because most air conditioners aren't rigged up to filter out particulate matter, people are getting asthma attacks inside their offices. Ferries are cancelled due to visibility issues.









Regional AQI

Oh we're also on water restriction level 2 because of drought (soon to be level 3 apparently even though we just moved to 2) and there's still massive fires sweeping the east coast.

our prime minister is currently holding a press conference about some fucking right to discriminate religious bill and is refusing to answer questions on fire service support
 
lint2015

lint2015

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,811


I snapped some pics while running errands this morning. I'm in Western Sydney right now, and the smell is so much stronger there, so smoke is probably much thicker too.
 
BAGERK

BAGERK

Member
Oct 27, 2017
71
Sydney
Yeah I'm trying to do some surveying out west near Kellyville and I can only do about 15 minutes of work at a time before my eyes hurt too much to see.
 

Joco

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,446
At this point all you can really do is sit back and grimly laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation. The politicians and business suits and brainwashed deniers all want to continue on with business as usual, and then there's situations like this which are only going to get worse and more frequent every year until no one can deny what's happening any longer.

Buckle up, we're in for a ride.
 
djinn

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
15,770
I was telling my brother to come visit me in Adelaide for a week so he can get away from the smoke, but he's not able to. I worry for him.
 
Maximo

Maximo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,179
Fuck our current government for being pieces of shit and climate deniers.

kcgP4oX.png


IMG_20191205_150809.jpg



Colour of what was most of Sydney last week, ash falling from the sky a fuckin Mad Max hell over here.
 
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Mavis

Mavis

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,476
Blue Mountains
I'm in the Blue Mountains, fire front is about 8km away at the last update. Smoke is everywhere, inside is now no better than outside. Just want the fire to hit so we can move on, been in limbo for a couple of weeks.
 
leder

leder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,111
Currently visiting your wonderful city. Fortunately the last two days weren't as bad. Don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight with the combo of the smoke and heat in our ancient hotel with no AC.
 
Aussiebattler

Aussiebattler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
251
Sydney
Had to leave the warehouse today to accept a furniture delivery and holy shit driving is dangerous as hell atm
Feel so bad for all the tradies working outside
 
ShotyMcFat

ShotyMcFat

Member
Oct 29, 2017
472
lint2015

lint2015

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,811
Solar Puffin said:
Well hey, at least this probably be a one off event.

Because there's gonna be nothing left to burn after this.
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I had that thought, but Australian trees recover pretty quickly from bush fires and these temperatures will be the norm at the current pace of carbon emissions over the next few decades. I don't think this will be a one-off event. We probably won't see something as bad for a while, but there'll be more.
 
DarthWalden

DarthWalden

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,030
We had some crazy bush fires in Alberta the past couple years and it was awful, this summer sucked weather wise but at least we were smoked free. 0
 
A Strong Latte

A Strong Latte

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,162
Scott Morrison is a fucking asshole. In full deflection mode now with the volcano eruption in NZ. Still not saying shit about the smoke or bushfires other than "WOW our firefighters are AMAZING"
 
Bio

Bio

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,370
Denver, Colorado
It's so goddamn depressing, knowing that even when the problem is this obvious, this in our faces real and tangible, that we'll not do a fucking thing about it.
 

Deleted member 15428

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,464
Jintor said:
you might have heard that pretty much all of new south wales and southern queensland is on fire. well depending on the winds a lot of that smog gets pitched across various city centres and right now sydney is getting it

fire alarms are triggering across the city just from ambient pollution, you can't see like two blocks ahead of you. Because most air conditioners aren't rigged up to filter out particulate matter, people are getting asthma attacks inside their offices. Ferries are cancelled due to visibility issues.









Regional AQI

Oh we're also on water restriction level 2 because of drought (soon to be level 3 apparently even though we just moved to 2) and there's still massive fires sweeping the east coast.

our prime minister is currently holding a press conference about some fucking right to discriminate religious bill and is refusing to answer questions on fire service support
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Why 'post'?
 
Cilla

Cilla

Member
Oct 29, 2017
610
Queensland, Australia
I hate it. Nothing is being done. Like this is a huge thing and our PM doesn't even give a crap?

I have spent the last few days cleaning every inch of my house as there's so much ash in it covering everything from a fire that was pretty close by and was picked up by the wind. I mean I know that isn't a big deal compared to everything but it's just annoying that literally nothing is happening.
 
DavidDesu

DavidDesu

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,718
Glasgow, Scotland
Surely if this level of pollution keeps happening and is a regular occurrence year after year there's going to be thousands of people dropping dead prematurely as a direct result. Tens or hundreds of thousands. It's fucking terrifying. Not sure what I'd be feeling if I lived in Sydney right about now.
 

Kahoots

Member
Feb 15, 2018
985
lint2015 said:
I had that thought, but Australian trees recover pretty quickly from bush fires and these temperatures will be the norm at the current pace of carbon emissions over the next few decades. I don't think this will be a one-off event. We probably won't see something as bad for a while, but there'll be more.
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Vegetation is geared around an average seven year catastrophic fire event.
 
Keuja

Keuja

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,185
Wow that's especially bad for new born babies and young kids. Time to send them on a trip to the gold coast.
 
bobnowhere

bobnowhere

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,528
Elsewhere for 8 minutes
Don't worry Scott Morrison (The PM) is on it, today he's announced a new tranche of religious discrimination laws allowing religious organisations to hire and fire people based on sexuality etc... That'll solve the fire crisis. If only he could work out how to blame it on unions.
 

Deleted member 48434

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 8, 2018
5,230
Sydney
bobnowhere said:
Don't worry Scott Morrison (The PM) is on it, today he's announced a new tranche of religious discrimination laws allowing religious organisations to hire and fire people based on sexuality etc... That'll solve the fire crisis. If only he could work out how to blame it on unions.
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This man needs to go for a swim and then never be seen again.
 
dabig2

dabig2

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,116
Joco said:
At this point all you can really do is sit back and grimly laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation. The politicians and business suits and brainwashed deniers all want to continue on with business as usual, and then there's situations like this which are only going to get worse and more frequent every year until no one can deny what's happening any longer.

Buckle up, we're in for a ride.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Even sadder thing is that this was basically predicted.
From early September and for anyone who's interested in why this extreme weather event is likely occurring this year:
file-20190906-175678-ebzlr1.gif

(Left) Observation of September 2002 stratospheric warming compared to (right) 2019 forecast for September. The forecast for 2019 was provided by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and was initialised on August 30, 2019.


Record warm temperatures above Antarctica over the coming weeks are likely to bring above-average spring temperatures and below-average rainfall across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland.

The warming began in the last week of August, when temperatures in the stratosphere high above the South Pole began rapidly heating in a phenomenon called "sudden stratospheric warming".


In the coming weeks the warming is forecast to intensify, and its effects will extend downward to Earth's surface, affecting much of eastern Australia over the coming months.

The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting the strongest Antarctic warming on record, likely to exceed the previous record of September 2002.
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What's going on?
Every winter, westerly winds – often up to 200km per hour – develop in the stratosphere high above the South Pole and circle the polar region. The winds develop as a result of the difference in temperature over the pole (where there is no sunlight) and the Southern Ocean (where the sun still shines).

As the sun shifts southward during spring, the polar region starts to warm. This warming causes the stratospheric vortex and associated westerly winds to gradually weaken over the period of a few months.

However, in some years this breakdown can happen faster than usual. Waves of air from the lower atmosphere (from large weather systems or flow over mountains) warm the stratosphere above the South Pole, and weaken or "mix" the high-speed westerly winds.

Very rarely, if the waves are strong enough they can rapidly break down the polar vortex, actually reversing the direction of the winds so they become easterly. This is the technical definition of "sudden stratospheric warming."

Although we have seen plenty of weak or moderate variations in the polar vortex over the past 60 years, the only other true sudden stratospheric warming event in the Southern Hemisphere was in September 2002.

In contrast, their northern counterpart occurs every other year or so during late winter of the Northern Hemisphere because of stronger and more variable tropospheric wave activity.
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So obviously a crazy bad luck event, but one we expect to happen with more frequency as the lesser versions also get stronger; all because the earth will continue to warm up and make average conditions worse in the poles and elsewhere. This planet has a lot of moving parts after all.

It's a shame that leaders in the Aussie government and around the world are still denying that climate change is happening and will continue to happen and that we're responsible.

I rather not continue being the fabled boiling fog in the hot pot, but some motherfuckers always trying to ice-skate uphill.

Birdseye said:
Why 'post'?
Click to expand...
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?
 
Z-Beat

Z-Beat

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,852
Should've seen it out here in SoCal during the fires a while back

59dd104992406c86008b576c
 
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