Photo: Ryan Lahiff
While we expect climate change to alter conditions on earth, we probably weren’t expecting to resemble one of our closest planetary neighbours, Mars, so soon. But residents in Sydney, Australia, woke up to what appeared to be extra-terrestrial conditions: a crimson-red fog blanketed the entire city and blocked out the morning light from the star that illuminates our planet.
Years of very dry weather have parched the Australian interior and created the most severe draught on record. Coupled with strong winds, the worst dust storm in 70 years blew in over Sydney and the eastern coastline, according to environmental scientist, Nigel Tapper. Extreme winds stirred up tons of topsoil and carried it hundreds of miles. While these kinds of conditions are common in the outback region, they rarely affect the coastal areas.
Besides causing widespread panic, the suffocating dust created severe health concerns, especially for the elderly and those already suffering from breathing conditions. The anomaly pushed air pollution to 1500 times the normal level. The air quality index for Sydney measured at 4164, way above the 200 hazardous level threshold.
Greatly reduced visibility caused traffic chaos and cancelled flights, closed schools and created numerous other delays. With orange dust coating everything outside inches thick, authorities urged people to stay indoors, creating an eerie, post-apocalyptic atmosphere.
Australia is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change, but, ironically, is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita, largely due to coal powered electricity.
Photo: Reuters
An enhanced satellite image shows the dust storm covering over eastern Australia
Photo: “Sydney Tall Ship” by john davey2008 via flickr.
Photo: “Sydney Dust Storm” by EyeGraphics via flickr.
Photo: “Sydney Dust Storm” by EyeGraphics via flickr.
Photo: “Sydney Dust Storm” by EyeGraphics via flickr.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
What eerie pictures of Sydney! Thanks for posting them.
By the way, Canberra is actually the capital city of Australia, not Sydney. A common mistake!
Thanks for the correction Matt!
Amazing photographs – It looks like a post-apocalyptic movie set.
“The attempts of environmentalists to bolster the myth of human-induced ‘global warming’ by the cynical, nay gleeful, exploitation of non-equilibrium climatic events is downright immoral.”
Philip Stott, Professor of Biogeography, University of London, in a letter to the Times, Nov 2000
@Chris
Perhaps every individual extreme weather event can’t be linked to climate change. However the 13-year drought that eastern Australia has been experiencing created the dusty conditions that made the dust storm possible. And according to the IPCC summary of impacts on Australia, this drought appears to be linked with global warming and regional climate change directly.