WA records driest 6 months on record, South WA declared a warming and drying hot spot.

If you live in southern WA, it won’t come as a surprise to hear about our persistently dry weather, in fact WA has just experienced its driest six months on record, with no sign of significant relief on the horizon.

On The Record’s Jeff Bullen was joined by Dr Joe Fontaine, lecturer of environmental and conservative science at Murdoch University.

Dr Fontaine declared that if you were to imagine a line from Shark Bay to Denmark on the south coast, everything west of that has been impacted on some level. The aforementioned line started in the north, with browning and drying off of  vegetation, and that has since increased down the west coast through the forest.

Dr Fontaine and his team at Murdoch University are studying the change in the vegetation to determine what can be done to help the at-risk vegetation. Some vegetation will be able to survive and re-sprout but some will also be unable to be fixed. Factors such as time, human disturbance, fire and others, are factors that Dr Fontaine and his team are fighting to understand to give them a better idea of what they can do to give plants and animals the best possible chance, with the climate changing.

For more information, please read The Big Dry, written by Dr Joe Fontaine