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Climate Change Doubled the Size of Forest Fires In Western US, Says Study (time.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TIME: Man-made climate change has doubled the total area burned by forest fires in the Western U.S. in the past three decades, according to new research. Damage from forest fires has risen dramatically in recent decades, with the total acres burned in the U.S. rising from 2.9 million in 1985 to 10.1 million in 2015, according to National Interagency Fire Center data. Suppression costs paid by the federal government now top $2 billion. Now a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that a significant portion of the increase in land burned by forest fires can be attributed to man-made climate change. Other factors are also at play, including natural climate shifts and a change in how humans use land, but man-made climate change has had the biggest impact. That trend will likely continue as temperatures keep rising, researchers said. Climate change contributes to forest fires in a number of ways. Fires kill off trees and other plants that eventually dry and act as the fuel to feed massive wildfires. Global warming also increases the likelihood of the dry, warm weather in which wildfires can thrive. Average temperatures in the Western U.S. rose by 2.5 degree Fahrenheit since 1970, outpacing temperature rise elsewhere on the globe, according to the research.
Here's the raw data, the article itself is behind a paywall. Choosing 2015 is kind of cherry-picking for the headline, since in 2014 there were only 3,5 million acres burned.
There's a fairly strong correlation between temperature and wildfires, so, this finding seems reasonable.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Firefighting also increases forest fire size. Attacking nearly every fire allows flammable materials to collect, we end up trading a series of small fires for a very large conflagration when an area eventually burns.
... as a scuba diver ... recovering and hooking up buckets helicopters dropped (if a lift doesn't feel right its a safety precaution, quick detach cable and try again) into a lake being used as a water source. Take that myth busters, scuba diver in a tree at a forest fire, plausible. :-)
There is some debate about being less aggressive and to allow a process closer to natural, but development and the protection of structures complicates things.
So man made causes, those of a climate change variety and others are both at work. It would be interesting to see how they separate the two. Plus increased human activity in an area also increases fire risks, from unsupervised campfires to bad mufflers on dirt bikes and atvs. Its not as simple as saying there was an increase from 3M to 10M acres over the last 30 years. I've witness a lot of increased development and increased human activity in southern california hills that are prone to wild fires.
I also worked a wild fire once
The reality is that just caused massive fuel buildup in the forests, and made them far more flammable than they were in the past. That said, climate change has magnified this problem and made the tinder box even more dangerous.
Considering that forests here in the west thrive on natural burn policies, and the current forestry management practice is to put them out ASAP, you're right on part of that. There are parts in the pine forests in Western Canada where the debris is more then 6' deep in places. Some places are even worse after the pine beetle infestations, there are places in the US the same way. Climate change hasn't magnified this problem, but humans sure have magnified it by not letting natural burn & regrowth cycles to occur.
Hell when I was in California(Southern) in the 1980's visiting with my dad's friends, the hills in the mountains usually burned every summer or every other summer. I was out there ~4 years ago, 3' of debris and the last fire had been in 1996. They put out even the smallest brush fire in minutes. These are man-made problems.
Om, nomnomnom...
It's the case in Australia if you believe this document from some well respected government scientific institutions (see the second page under Recent Trends)
http://www.climateinstitute.or...
I can't speak for other countries.
It's turtles all the way down.
Obligatory xkcd
The fact that the argument keeps changing should tell anyone everything they need to know.
Not to mention we're still in a cold period.
And the notion that there's some global temperature that climate is "supposed to be' is patently unscientific and ignorant of history.
The data shows we SHOULD be in a cold phase but the Earth has been warming rapidly compared to the last 10,000 years. The last time the average temperature rose 1c rapidly it took 900 years. Since the Industrial Revolution( roughly 1850s) the average temperature has risen a bit over 1C.
You can insist that given the great complexity of the Earth's ecosystem, scientists could not possibly know what will happen. They can theorize about weather change and some are right and some are wrong. But there is no doubt that the average temperature is rising and some areas close to the equator will start to be come uninhabitable in 20-30 years.
http://xkcd.com/1732/
I don't know whats worse: the fact you think that's in any sense a logical argument, or that someone modded you up.
what kind of idiot would make a logical link to building codes and building fires ?
Hint: higher temperatures can impact water retention of the foliage and soil. it can also shift rain patterns, amplifying the effect. and drier bio matter burns easier.
the intelligent answer is that is both climate and management related.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Hotter years typically have more forest fires.Years are getting increasingly more hot.