A Wobbly Moon

How interesting is this?

A wobble in the moon’s orbit around Earth affects mangrove cover across Australia and likely contributed to mass tree deaths in the Gulf of Carpentaria, new research suggests.
The moon’s orbit around Earth does not occur in a flat plane.

 “Since the 1720s, people have known that it moves up and down by a few degrees,” said the study’s lead author, Prof Neil Saintilan of Macquarie University. He likened the motion to “when you’re spinning a coin – as it loses momentum, it kind of wobbles”.

Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

A study published in the journal Scientific Advances has found that an 18.61-year cycle known as the lunar nodal cycle shapes the condition of tidal wetlands
This has affected the mangrove forests in Northern Australia.
Read the whole article here in the Guardian.

The Mangrove forest type occurs in many of Australia’s coastal regions, but has a total area of only 0.9 million hectares, or 0.6% of Australia’s native forest cover. Australian Mangrove forests contain 41 species of mangrove from 19 plant families. More than half of the world’s mangrove species are found in Australia.