I recently reported that the wet season had well and truly arrived in the Daintree, with over 700 mm of rain in five days.
More recently, Jennifer published the Australian mean rainfall total for 2007 at 497 mm, slightly more than the long-term average of 472 mm.
So, there is no question; the Daintree Cape Tribulation rainforest occupies a very wet part of Australia. Last year we recorded a total rainfall of 4,757 mm and the year before; 6,240 mm.
The most recent deluge, though, was of an intensity not seen for many years. In March of 1996, I recall that 1,219 mm fell in 48 hours. Flooding was so powerful that the Daintree River Ferry was deposited upon its pylons and the road across the heights of the Alexandra section, collapsed.
It must be said, that here in the Daintree rainforest, we brace ourselves in the face of extreme weather events, but they also remind us unequivocally of our subordinance to nature.
If I were to conservatively estimate that only one direct cyclone was to have hit every fifty years, the ancient rainforests of the Daintree would have bore the brunt of 2.7million cyclones over its 135-million year existence. On this basis, it becomes a very regular and recurring event.
In the aftermath, perhaps half the canopy is dislodged to the forest floor and as much as twice the sunlight is able to penetrate to these leafy depths of nutrient abundance. There can be no doubt that the extent of flowering and fruiting is maximised after cyclonic events. All other populations seem to multiply.
And the creeks become magnificent!
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Too bad about the parts that aren’t getting the rain.
Thats right, SJT, there must be a negative somewhere.
Over the single 12 hour interval of Thursday night the runoff from my place in northern NSW was more than 110 megalitres. This did not include the volume flowing through the property along the creek.
Yet, the government, in their eagerness to (titter titter) “properly manage” the water resources, (guufffaaaw) have granted us the princely volume of 7.4 megalitres as our “as-of-right storage entitlement”.
So even if all our farm dams had been empty, we could only have captured 48 MINUTES of the deluge to last us the whole year. And lets get this clear, there was more than enough flooding in the days before and after to supply all of the ecological need for downstream flood surges.
The mean annual soil moisture deficit in our area is about 4 megalitres/hectare so we missed out on enough water to ensure maximum growth over 27 hectares of orchard or other crops. And with spot water prices at about $1,000/ megalitre, that means the government ripped me off to the tune of $102,000 in a single night.
And people wonder why I sometimes get a little bit @#$%& grumpy?
Of course, all of this can be controlled by attempting to manipulate atmospheric CO2, with or without the help of China, can’t it?
SJT’s negative comment about good news reminds me of a headline that was something like this: “Iraq deaths down. Morticians hurt.”
Well I just think that the photograph is magnificent. And I would like to taste that water.
I havent been up to the Barrington lately but I bet the same clear streams are running
I sometimes feel that I’ve stumbled into some Lewis Carroll type fantasy world when I realize that within 200 Ks they are forced to live under stage 5 water restrictions.
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE::pc=PC_2162
within 200 Ks ?
even Lewis Carroll could not string bris water (consumers,managers?) to the Daintree
I think he might be talking about 200km of northern NSW, Gavin.