India, Jan. 16 -- It's 2020, and the world is burning. Well, large parts of Australia literally are, at any rate. Bushfires that are customary for Australian summers, and which more often than not can be tamed, have gone wild east and southeast of that country, and are now threatening urban meccas like Sydney and Melbourne.
People In New Zealand Can Smell Australia Burning
The most direct reason behind the aggressively expansionist fires is the extended spell of drought that has hit the country this summer. A surplus of rainfall, as well as a late withdrawal of India's southwest monsoons, foreshadowed an unusual imbalance in the Indian Ocean Dipole, which links the Indian and the Australian monsoons. This led to an extended spell of droug...