Climate
The Tully - Mission Beach area has the highest rainfall of anywhere on the Australian coast, with an annual average of 4,321mm, and average wettest quarter (January - March) of 2,288mm. The average number of wet days per year is 154 , and at Chakoro Nature Reserve there is a heavy dew probably 360 days out of 365. In 1995 we recorded 860mm in one 48 hour period.
In 1999 we had the highest annual rainfall total since records began in 1926, receiving 5,184 mm (204 inches). There were 190 wet days in 1999.
In 2000 we had 4,772 mm (188 inches).
(The absolutely wettest place in Australia is on top of the nearby Mt Bellenden Ker, with an annual average of 8,529mm and a maximum annual figure of 10,952mm. On 4th January 1979, this station recorded a record 24 hour total of 1,140mm)
Temperatures in the summer are around 32ºC in the daytime and 25ºC at night. We don't really have a winter, but in the 'dry season', temperatures are about 25ºC in the daytime and 15ºC at night.
The result of all this is that the free-draining red soils are very leached of nutrients, and conditions favour trees capable of handling water-logged ground. The humidity is constantly high and the record lowest overnight winter temperature of 9ºC means that insects, fungi and moulds are always at work, breaking down the forest litter into simpler nutrients that are immediately taken up again by the plants.
The rate of growth of plants under these circumstances is truly phenominal, and although foliage is only locking up Carbon Dioxide for a few months, before falling to the forest floor and breaking back down again, the wood produced is Nature's best way of slowing down the rate of Carbon recycling.
Chakoro Nature Reserve absorbs 600 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per year - as much as is liberated by the lifestyles of 170 of the world's average people. It also liberates 478 tonnes of Oxygen per year, and builds 270 tonnes of dry organic matter per year. In doing so it uses no artificial fertilisers, no pesticides, no external energy supplies, and creates absolutely no pollution.
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