Studies: Wildfires Worse Due To Global Warming

An anonymous reader writes "According to scientists we can look forward to more devastating wildfires like the ones scorching Southern California because of global warming. "The fires in California and here in Arizona are a clear example of what happens as the Earth warms, particularly as the West warms, and the warming caused by humans is making fire season longer and longer with each decade," said University of Arizona geoscientist Jonathan Overpeck. "It's certainly an example of what we'll see more of in the future.""

Comments

Accoeding to arsonists

[drainbramage]

We would like to give our heartiest thanks to the politicians that have made it illegal to clear under-brush or to provide any reasonable wildfire suppression activities.

Re:Man is responsible for larger wildfires ...

[Mashiki]

Preventing the natural burn cycle sets us up for larger fires. We need to be more strategic about our fire fighting in rural and wilderness settings.

Great idea, back in the 80's when I used to visit Socal, they'd burn out the hills every summer. Worked like a charm to keep the fires down, then the environmentalists, idiots with the mansions in the hills, and nimby's started throwing a hissy fits on every pro-active burn program out there. Everything from "it's making the air bad," to "it's not natures way."

Re:Facts are there

[Namarrgon]

Heh, now you accuse me of not providing links to support the claims I didn't make :-)

But if you like. A couple of studies (of many) predicting increases in wildfires due to climate change:

* Gonzalez et al 2010: Global patterns in the vulnerability of ecosystems to vegetation shifts due to climate change

* Moritz et al 2012: Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity

And a study (one of many) showing that climate is the dominant factor in the size of the wildfires we've been seeing:

* Littell et al 2009 Climate and wildfire area burned in western US ecoprovinces:

We demonstrate that wildfire area burned (WFAB) in the American West was controlled by climate during the 20th century (1916-2003)....For 1977-2003, a few climate variables explain 33-87% (mean = 64%) of WFAB, indicating strong linkages between climate and area burned.

By contrast, Mr Watts' "facts" are also nothing more than unsubstantiated declarations and assumptions, just like yours. A few random examples from your link:

* "This [CO2] percentage increase means nothing. Human CO2 emissions didn’t begin to rise significantly until after 1945": Keyword is 'significantly' - he claims the rise is not significant, but provides no justifications for this assumption, other than that the atmospheric percentage is "about as close to nothing as you can get" (it's a really small-looking number). No citations given.

* "...there is no way that this miniscule amount [of atmospheric CO2] can have any significant effect on climate." Another unsubstantiated declaration in his "facts" list. No citations given for this claim.

* "CO2 also lags short-term warming [historical graph] showing that warming causes rise in CO2, not the other way around if CO2 was the cause." - Incorrectly assumes that CO2 must either be a cause or an effect, but could never be both. No citations given for this "fact", either.

* "...global climate marches in lock step with sun spots, length of the sun spot cycle, and intensity of the solar magnetic field... total solar insolation (TSI) correlates very well with climate". Once more, he just claims this as a fact, with (wait for it) no citations given.

* "HadCRUT4 temperature curve showing that 56% of the warming since 1895 occurred prior to 1945"... according to his arbitrarily-drawn red lines. The HadCRUT4 temperature graph may well be accurate, but (of course) he provides no citation for any peer-reviewed source for his claimed "56% of warming" cut-off point (looks to me like the red line that claims to show this is just drawn to the peak of the biggest short-term fluctuation he can find, without regard to averages or trends or anything).

I could easily go on, but I have work to do. If Watts' unbacked assertions are what you consider "facts", then it's no wonder you usually don't bother to link to them.