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Let's say Australia north coast was located over New Zealand how would it effect the climate, precipitation and the vegetation.
Australia would like much greener and lush with temperate forests dominating the South and a steppe in which is now a desert, the north coast would be less subtropical rainforests possibly?
I'm imagining a Australia that's more prone to coldwaves then heatwaves and is much more like the Northern hemisphere continents.
Though Extreme heat will probably be still a issue during an Australian summer but maybe less so?
I would like to hear from Australians and how it would effect the country culturally as well.
I'd love to hear any replies from this and what people think!
Yeah maybe along the victorian alps and the southern half of the great dividng range, tasmania will be a cold subarctic island. I also think coastal australia will be more oceanic and wet with inland and highland areas being cold and snowy. Maybe like southern canada and the midwest region of the States.
But the cold air from Antartica will still be tempered somewhat.
I think southern Australia will be very oceanic with year round coolness much like Punta Arenas in Chile. But maybe colder in winter
Anyway what do people think Australia will look like?
Assuming the northern tip of Australia is moved to the northern tip of New Zealand (10S to 34S):
A lot of southern Australia would be tundra and the east coast would probably be similar to the Canadian Maritimes and Labrador.
Tasmania would be around 67S which is only a few hundred km from Antarctica so I would imagine there would be sea ice year round to the south of Tasmania and maybe even year round sea ice to the north of Tasmania.
At 36S, Darwin would have a climate similar to those areas of NZ but definitely with some continental characteristics.
If Australia's extreme northern point was latitude 35 degrees south, that would mean somewhere like southern Tasmania would be at 65-70 degrees. I think under that setup and assuming current day conditions, heatwaves would hardly ever occur and I think almost all of Australia would be able to experience significantly cold temperatures, and snowfall during southerly outbreaks in the winter. My guess is that temperatures would be similar to Canada or Northern USA, though more moderate with cooler summers and warmer winters. I also agree that Australia would be wetter, coming under the influence of the westerlies it would be much wetter along the coasts and inland year-round.
The far northern areas like Darwin and Broome would probably have a Mediterranean type rainfall pattern but with colder winters and warm, but not overly hot summers. The climates here would still be on average colder than what is seen in southern Australia currently and would probably experience snow on an annual basis. Locations outside the far north would probably see fairly consistent year-round precipitation, cities like Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne in exposed west facing locations would have wet temperate rainforest type climates, with yearly rainfall totals of 2000mm+. I think cities along the east coast such as Brisbane and Sydney would get drier due to the reduced influenced of warm Pacific waters to produce significant totals. Just my own speculations anyway.
I was thinking Southern Australia would have a climate like Southern Argentina and Chile, the interior of Australia would be hovering around 0C with a constant stream of snow, sleet and rain I'd say summers will be much cooler maybe temperatures around 26C but most likely interepted with cooler wet weather from the preveiling winds.
Western Australia would be very wet and much cooler maybe like Europe but much much wet and windier.
I think snow will be most common along the interior and southern areas of Australia.
cities like Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne in exposed west facing locations would have wet temperate rainforest type climates, with yearly rainfall totals of 2000mm+
Those cities would be around 60 S, so would more likely be treeless tundra climates. Even Brisbane would be around MacQuarie Island's latitude.
If Australia was shifted south enough (>22 degrees), Tasmania would become a part of Antarctica. I can't see how heatwaves would be much of an issue anymore.
I don't know the jet stream there well enough, but it would seem that thanks to the lack of mountains blocking Antarctic air, northern Australia would see some impressive record lows.
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