A fence built to prevent rabbits from entering the Australian outback has unintentionally allowed scientists to study the effects of land use on regional climates.<\/p>\n
The rabbit-proof fence \u2014 or bunny fence \u2014 in Western Australia was completed in 1907 and stretches about 2,000 miles. It acts as a boundary separating native vegetation from farmland. Within the fence area, scientists have observed a strange phenomenon: above the native vegetation, the sky is rich in rain-producing clouds. But the sky on the farmland side is clear. [At Australia’s Bunny Fence, Variable Cloudiness Prompts Climate Study<\/em><\/a>. New York Times. August 14 2007]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That may not sound as astounding as seeing a pig flying but wait till you see this picture:<\/p>\n And what is so interesting about this finding?<\/p>\n Dr. Nair speculates that increases in the world’s population will prompt the clearing of more land to increase food production. But he wonders whether, in the long run, “we will reach a point of land clearing that will diminish food production,” because rainfall has decreased. [At Australia’s Bunny Fence, Variable Cloudiness Prompts Climate Study<\/em><\/a>. New York Times. August 14 2007]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Can anybody say decreasing returns to scale?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A recent observation in Australia suggests that cloud formation is related to vegetation: A fence built to prevent rabbits from entering the Australian outback has unintentionally allowed scientists to study the effects of land use on regional climates. The rabbit-proof fence \u2014 or bunny fence \u2014 in Western Australia was completed in 1907 and stretches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,14],"tags":[137,568,567],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-science","tag-climate-change","tag-clouds","tag-cultivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3787,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/3787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"NYT.](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maddruid.com\/Graphics\/nytBunnyFence.jpg?w=580&ssl=1\" "\\"NYT.")
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