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

I thought weather was not climate...

[SuperKendall]

Any time someone says "look how bad winter was" they are (rightfully) chided for treating a variation in weather as being "climate".

Well who does not remember years and years of past California wildfires. Guess what, drought happens. You can't declare one "climate change" just because it's scary.

And you can't even see that climate change makes drought more likely without way more data than we have. A warmer climate could mean some areas are dryer, others wetter. But actually overall it would mean more moisture in the system, not less...

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[bunratty]

I can see that for years climatologists have been saying that drought-stricken areas will become even drier with more warming. And according to the article there has been a three-decade pattern of fires getting worse in the West: "Since 1984, the area burned by the West's largest wildfires — those of more than 1,000 acres — have increased by about 87,700 acres a year, according to an April study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters."

One winter is not a long-term pattern. Something that gets worse over the course of decades, in contrast, is a long-term pattern.

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[bunratty]

Is a period of one month: a) short-term, or b) long-term?

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[Hognoxious]

We don't, do we? We measure the number of them, and their severity, over a period of months.

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[bunratty]

There's no cherry picking of one particular week or month. From TFA: "Since 1984, the area burned by the West's largest wildfires — those of more than 1,000 acres — have increased by about 87,700 acres a year, according to an April study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters."

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[jackspenn]

Are you sure the more frequent larger fires aren't actually the result of past fire prevention? I know some fire fighters and park rangers who told me that policy changes in the 90s prevented them from letting small fires go naturally (these fires weren't even important enough to make the national news). Instead the policy was modified to "Put all observed fires out ASAP." In addition they were banned from removing brush that would normally have been consumed by these smaller fires. I remember them saying that if not changed the policies would lead to bigger fires in the future. A sorta pay for it later mess. So my question is, if it is fair to say many "Scientist" claim fire increases are because of "climate change", is it not fair to say there are "Philosophers" who reason fire increases are because of "bureaucratic BS"?

Re:I thought weather was not climate...

[jackspenn]

area burned by the West's largest wildfires — those of more than 1,000 acres — have increased by about 87,700 acres a yea

So here is the problem with libtards, they create a problem and then use selective results that are actually the result of their own BS as proof, more of what they want, needs to be done.

This is true with the wild fires and the selection of data to help show how bad Global Warming is getting. The government back in the 90s decided their brilliant fire policies could be even more brilliant. Instead of letting small fires burn (some seeds and bugs only grow/hatch after a fire), but no no no, people in universities and in Washington, these intellectuals, were smarter than nature or those western ranching folks with no college degree. See these collectivists were so smart they said "New policy let's put every fire out ASAP". "Oh, and no you cannot remove brush and grass and 'fuel' that would normally have been periodically consumed and used up and removed". Instead the new "intellectuals" said "protect nature" ... by acting in an unnatural way. So all these little fires were put out and things looked so good ( ... in the short-term), that I am sure they patted themselves on the back and were like "Boy are we awesome, we are so much smarter than that farmer who said this was a dangerous idea".

So the fuel just built up everywhere and then when something happens to ignite it, be it lightening or a cigarette, the little fires have a greater probability of becoming bigger fires. Time means more fuel, greater risk. Tick tick tick. So then after awhile we get these huge fires. What do those smart intellectuals do? Do they review their suggestions of the past? Take into account the bureaucratic BS that contributed to these fires? No! First, they smoke a bowl and later .... they say "Let's help that farmer who lost his ranch. Let's help those people who lost there homes. Let's explain to them that it is all mankind's fault." They then go on to explain BS like carbon foot prints and how that is why fires are worse. It is also why flooding is worse or droughts or pretty much anything, and the only way to fix it is to accept global collectivism. Yup, only with global collectivism can we prevent forest fires.

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:Accoeding to arsonists

[drinkypoo]

Precisely the problem. The Greens have prevented the kind of land management you need in order to prevent brushfires spreading.

This is a bunch of ignorant cockery. The rich have prevented etc etc. They're the ones who buy the big spreads in the hills and then sue to prevent anyone from carrying out controller burns which might affect their views. And they're the ones who buy the laws which control the building codes which permit people to build flammable homes in the middle of a forest in the first place, which is just goddamned ignorant. We have many different kinds of homes which are not vulnerable to forest fire with adequate clearing including compressed straw bale (the straw is compressed, and covered with stucco) and earth bag, to name two of the cheapest with the least environmental impact. The greens would love to build homes like that, but they typically aren't permitted to by building codes.

But this is a light fire year

[weiserfireman]

Every year there are devastating fires somewhere. But we have to look at the acreage and number of fires.

Last year was a light fire year. About 20% lighter than the 10 year average.

So far this year, we are about 15% behind the 10 year average in the number of wildland fires. And we are about 50% behind in the number of acres burned.

http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/n...

Honestly, I still expect overall the world's climate will be getting wetter with global warming. There might be some regions that will get drier, but warmer oceans mean more evaporation. Warmer temperatures mean the air can hold more moisture resulting in higher humidity. Eventually that higher humidity has to result in more rainfall somewhere. But even if higher humidity doesn't result in rain, higher humidity does result in less aggressive fire behavior.
      I am not a climate scientist. I have a lot of people scoff at me when I say this, but they never explain how I am wrong. I can read the projections but the projections never seem to include the increased levels of ocean evaporation that I expect.

Re:No, no it's not.

[gmuslera]

Climate change is consequence of global warming. And that "warming" is not one that you would easily notice (a few tenths of degrees in the average global temperature each year), but still have effects everywhere, including (and changing) the climate. And if you want, that warming is caused in a good degree by human activity, incrementing the percent of some greenhouse gases (like CO2) in the atmosphere. And it have more consequences than just incrementing temperature, like ocean acidification.

How you make people aware of slow, hard to notice small changes in global trends? Pointing out some of the most visible consequences as they are being discovered/correlated etc. If i tell you that CO2 in atmosphere increased a 100% and you see the air around you normal, you won't worry about it. If i tell you that the average global temperature increased 1-2 C, you see local weather events, see that nothing really big changed (or worse, that in some regions were colder than in other years) and still won't care/do anything about it. So the effort is showing you that there are visible things that hits you that are consequences of those otherwise hard to see (in a short time span, in a narrow geographical sense) trends.

Re:No, no it's not.

[Dorianny]

First of all, it's "climate change" now and not "global warming"... some spots are having much cooler temperatures instead.

Global warming refers to the rise of the average temperature of Earth's climate system. The effect of global warming is climate change, a change in global or regional climate patterns.

Man is responsible for larger wildfires ...

[perpenso]

First off, I am *not* a climate change denier.

That said, wildfires are a very complicated topic and man is responsible for their increased size and devastation. However the man made activity that has a huge impact here is fire fighting. This has been known for many decades. The problem is that the natural cycle of fires leads to smaller fires. These smaller fires prevent fuel from accumulating and they provide a patchwork of natural firebreaks to a degree. Our habit of stomping out every single fire as it starts just leads to more and more fuel accumulating over larger and larger areas. The result is the larger and more devastating fires.

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.

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:"According to scientists"

[PopeRatzo]

Ya, well others say just the opposite.

You're right. Here's a photo of one:

http://www.constantinereport.c...

Deniers of science ...

[perpenso]

Wow first four comments are global warming deniers and all post within six minutes. Earn that pay, boys!

Sorry, AC. But the deniers of science here are those who deny the effect of fire suppression policies and land management policies. Sometimes it really is the politics.

The huge factors here are (1) fire suppression policies not allowing natural burn cycles to occur, fuel unnaturally accumulates and it does so over larger areas and (2) land management where people are allowed to build in fire prone areas but not allowed to clear brush to a "safe" distance. The result is larger fires and fires that are a high risk to homes.

CO2 is only one of many man made problems and it is not always the leading contributor.

Bullshit.

[Karmashock]

As someone that has been in regions where these wildfires have happened, I can tell you it is actually bad forest management.

Here's the thing. In nature, forests burn on occasion. Always have. Its part of the natural process. Some species either actively encourage the fires or rely upon the fires as part of their life cycle.

Okay, now that it is established that if left alone the forests will occasionally burn... what happens if you don't cut trees down and cut brush back on occasion and instead just leave the whole thing to take care of itself.

It burns.

I live in California and that has been the cause of most of our wild fires. We used to have forest management to the extent that we would subcontract logging companies to go through the forests and thin them out a bit so there was room for new growth and the whole forest didn't go up like a roman candle every 10-30 years (depends on the plant species and local climate).

Well, that was stopped and the logging companies aren't allowed to operate in our forests anymore because they're not environmentally friendly.

Fine... you're now putting nature in charge. And nature is going to burn that fucker down on its own schedule.

Global warming might have something to do with this sort of thing but it is NOT what is causing the vast majority of forest fires in the US. They are caused by moronic forest management that is itself guided by crystal rubbing mystics that will say out of one side of their mouth that the environment is harmed by direct human management and then say out of the other side that nature's natural processes are all our fault.

These people are idiots.

And just to preempt the first fucktard that responds to this post saying I have his misguided asshattery wrong... I don't. I live here. I've seen this happen over years. I saw was we were doing before. I saw what you did, I watched the forest prime itself like a coiling spring, I saw the fires, I watched the clean up, and I've been listening to you same slack-jawed halfwits ever since point fingers at anyone besides yourselves.

Do the Earth a favor and listen more and talk less.

Re:Arson is blamed on Global Warming now?

[OneAhead]

In case it wasn't clear, wildfires are predominantly caused by accumulation of a sufficiently large amount of sufficiently dry combustible material. Once it's there, it will inevitably catch fire one day or another, arson or not. And climate change has the potential to modulate that "sufficiently dry" attribute. It is equally true that humanity is actively modulating the "sufficiently large amount" attribute (for example by suppressing small undergrowth fires and by not cutting the undergrowth that would otherwise be removed by these fires), which doesn't make things any better. But arson has relatively little to do with it.

Re: No, no it's not.

[Namarrgon]

Sure. Look at the IPCC AR5 WGII report, it discusses benefits as well as costs.

It's just that the costs and risks appear to greatly outweigh the benefits, or the benefits are long-term enough that the short-term costs of adaption will outweigh them for a very long time.

Re:Common Sense says Environmentalists to Blame

[caseih]

I agree with your overall sentiment. In many cases it is beyond a joke and misguided attempts to help the environment often hurt it, as is the case with banning the disturbance of brush around homes and communities.

While you are correct that the banning of DDT was at the time unfounded scientifically--the egg shells seemed to be thinning that year generally and may not have had anything to do with DDT, but alas it was never really researched. However, had DDT continued to be used on the scale that it was, modern research has showed that mosquitoes would have adapted and become resistant in just a couple of years, ending the use of DDT anyway. Put in another way, banning DDT did *not* directly lead to the deaths of millions of people. Perhaps banning DDT was even a benefit, because now it is used by some countries, on a much smaller scale, to a good effect in controlling malaria.

Re:No, no it's not.

[CanadianRealist]

Fourthly, there's good reason to believe that at least some of the ones this week were started by (d-bag) arsonists.

The claim is that climate change is making the fires worse. That's very different than the question of how any one fire started.

Your argument is like pointing to a smoker killed in a car crash and saying "see, cigarettes don't cause cancer."

Maybe someone did start some of the fires. That's happened in the past as well. The real question is, are the fires worse now? From the article: in the 80's an average of 2.9 million acres burned each year, from 2010 to 2013 it was 6.4 million acres per year. That sounds quite a bit worse. Maybe the last few years were just unlucky years, or maybe the fires really are getting worse.

Maybe it's statements like yours from "non-scientists" arguing issues other than the ones raised that are confusing things.

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.