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posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-measure dept.

Which is larger? Yours, or mine? Australia or the United States of America, that is. With the bushfires in Australia out of control incinerating large swathes of the country a map was produced to visually depict how widespread the fires are. For emphasis the map was overlaid on top of America to give people an idea of the scope of the problem Australia is dealing with. Americans responded with disbelief that Australia was just as large as the USA. People were also in shock over how large an area, measured by size of US states, are currently burning. Responses on social media show how shocked and dumbfounded people were learning this.

  • Area of Australia = 7.692 million km2
  • Area of USA, excluding Alaska = 7.653 million km2

Here is the image under discussion.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Booga1 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:15AM (2 children)

    by Booga1 (6333) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:15AM (#940958)

    https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/alarming-us-map-of-australian-bushfires-explained-20131025-2w6vi.html [smh.com.au]

    NBC's controversial graphic ignored the finer details on the fire hotspots map.

    Dr Lewis said their choice of display "wasn't really appropriate".

    He explained that "each fire comes up as one small spot on the Sentinel website", while on NBC's report "they put a very big flaming icon over each of these little spots – which makes them look as if they've all joined up".

    So, the map makes it look like that, but that isn't the "whole picture." :P

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:29AM (1 child)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:29AM (#940969) Journal

    Another reason that the fires appear joined up is that much of the gaps between them are already burnt out. Those are still homes destroyed, unique fauna and flora lost. It isn't less important just because it happened yesterday. So NBC's picture might show the total damage, but not accurately display current fires. I read last night (but currently cannot find the source) that the current fireline would stretch from LA to New York and almost back again. That is still a lot of bushfire!

    CNN [cnn.com] quotes

    • "In total, more than 14.7 million acres have been burned across the country's six states."
    • About 480 million animals have died across NSW, professor Chris Dickman with the University of Sydney, estimates. "The true mortality is likely to be substantially higher than those estimated," [Note: that is in a single state, and includes livestock.]

    Unfortunately this is only the start of the summer season and there is not much good news for the next few months on the meteorological front.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Booga1 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:37AM

      by Booga1 (6333) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:37AM (#940972)

      Thank you for this informative retort. I wish more of my comments received such responses.