Walking in two worlds

Yes, thank you, Mick.

My roundup this week begins in the Antarctic, where Australian scientists have recorded grass growing for the first time on areas where the ice has retreated.

They're predicting that new grass plains are likely to spread over the continent's southern ocean islands, where their concern is for the prospect of wildfires started by lightning strikes and for which there would be no defence.

And they confirmed that the new growth was another sign of how human-caused climate change is warping the polar wilderness.

They presented their preliminary findings last week at the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Conference, which is in Oslo.

Professor Melody McGough, an ecologist from Monash University, who supervised the research, said the different strands of evidence came together to raise the prospect of a dramatically and rapidly changing Antarctic region, and in particular, this prospect of fire.

A wildfire in January last year ripped across 55% of Amsterdam Island, which is in the French southern Antarctic lands.

And in 2024, a fire burned on Bird Island in the sub-Antarctic.

They're cold, wet, boggy, icy, and the vegetation across many of these places is pretty sparse.

So the idea of fire in these areas is quite remarkable, McGovern said of the islands.

Grass is more flammable than other types of vegetation in the region, and both invasive bluegrass and native species seed and spread rapidly after a fire.

Grass-dominated systems are more likely to burn, she said.

The area is one of the fastest-warming regions in the Southern Hemisphere, and increasing temperatures have likely driven grass growth on the peninsula and nearby islands, normally dominated by hardy mosses and lichen.

Suddenly, we're starting to see grasses do well, or better than they used to, Monash PhD student and research leader Naomi Shepherd said.

While their data implies a net increase in grass across the region, the story is highly complex.

Every single island is undergoing its own mini climate change, Ms Shepherd said.

Some are drying, some are wetting, some are increasing in temperature.

So all of the grasses across these islands are undergoing different changes.

Climate change has warmed the Antarctic Peninsula by 3 degrees and amplified rare atmospheric warming events, such as the one in 2024 that saw temperatures in East Antarctica shoot 28 degrees above average.

Now to China, where Typhoon Dolphin hit the central province of Henan last week, with winds of 150 km an hour causing deluges in major cities and prompting the evacuation of more than a million people.

High winds disrupted flights and transports as authorities issued the highest level alert and the second highest alert in Beijing.

In Henan, schools and businesses were shut and non-essential outdoor activities cancelled.

The typhoon reached China after hitting Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture, where it cut power to more than 50,000 buildings.

In China, the typhoon broke rainfall records in the provinces of Henan and Hubei.

The steel-making city of Wugang received 209.5 mm of rain in a single day.