Wildfires Rage Through Portugal and Spain, Kill at Least 39

Posted on October 17, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: Fire, storm, flood, and drought disasters are growing. Perhaps they will soon become so commonplace as to go unreported. Of course, when we see something coming at us like the fire in the photo below, we need the reports. Hurricane Ophelia is partly responsible for the spread of these fires.

“Hundreds of fires in both countries are being fanned by winds from Hurricane Ophelia in the north, currently barreling towards Ireland, and encouraged by extremely dry terrain from a scorching hot summer in the region.

“Sixty-four people died in a wildfire in Portugal in June, and the country has declared a state of emergency in the northern region. “We are facing new (weather) conditions” due to climate change, Portuguese Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa told the press, as she also referenced the fires blazing in California. “In an era of climate change, such disasters are becoming reality all over the world.”

Source: Wildfires Rage Through Portugal and Spain, Kill at Least 39

Firestorm: 1,500 Structures Destroyed as Massive Wildfires Blaze Through Northern California

Posted on October 10, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: Now begins the age of extremes that everyone can see. No longer just statistical trends in numbers and sizes of floods and fires, global warming-spurred events are moving on stage and the lights are coming up.

Here are Robert Scribbler’s thoughts on the current California fires.

“Heat and drought and fire. A common litany these days for California — a state that has, year after year, been wracked by a series of unprecedented climate extremes.

“After a brief respite this winter, northern parts of a state reeling from woes related to human-caused climate change again settled into drought this summer. Having received near record amounts of rain during winter — enough to wreck the spillway at the Lake Oroville Dam — vegetation sprang anew. This rain-spurred growth then subsequently dried — developing widespread fuels for fires.” –Robert Scribbler (Firestorm: 1,500 Structures Destroyed as Massive Wildfires Blaze Through Northern California | robertscribbler).

Stark Evidence: A Warmer World Is Sparking More and Bigger Wildfires

Posted on October 2, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: When it’s warmer, there is greater possibility of fires starting, spreading, and intensifying. As the climate system strives to reach a new equilibrium, droughts, heatwaves, and fires will become more frequent.

As burned areas grow, weeds will spread. As fire frequency increases, fire-tolerant ecosystems dominated by weeds will become persistent. This will occur when there is not enough time between fires for trees to replace the weeds. We’ve already seen this happening in the western U. S. as fire tolerant cheatgrass has replaced much of the sagebrush ecosystem. New hyperactive fire regimes are in the global forecast for nature’s shift to a new equilibrium in the warmer Earth of the Anthropocene. Fires added to farms, domestic livestock, and all the other human impacts will shift the land from forests to weedlands of reduced diversity, stability, and carrying capacity. More about weeds.

Wildfire near Mariposa, California. JOSH EDELSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The increase in forest fires, seen this summer from North America to the Mediterranean to Siberia, is directly linked to climate change, scientists say. And as the world continues to warm, there will be greater risk for fires on nearly every continent.

“On a single hot, dry day this summer, an astonishing 140 wildfires leapt to life across British Columbia. “Friday, July 7 was just crazy,” says Mike Flannigan, director of the wildland fire partnership at the University of Alberta. A state of emergency was declared. By the end of summer, more than 1,000 fires had been triggered across the Canadian province, burning a record nearly 3 million acres of forest—nearly 10 times the average in British Columbia over the last decade. As the fires got bigger and hotter, even aerial attacks became useless. “It’s like spitting on a campfire,” says Flannigan. “It doesn’t do much other than making a pretty picture for the newspapers.”

“Forest fires are natural. But the number and extent of the fires being seen today are not. These fires are man-made, or at least man-worsened.

“Evidence is becoming more and more overwhelming,” says Flannigan, that climate change is spreading fires around the world. Globally, the length of the fire weather season increased by nearly 19 percent between 1978 and 2013, thanks to longer seasons of warm, dry weather in one-quarter of the planet’s forests. In the western United States, for example, the wildfire season has grown from five months in the 1970s to seven months today.

“The number-crunching now shows an increased risk for fire on nearly every continent, says Flannigan, though most of the work has focused on North America, where there is a larger pot of funding for such research. In the western U.S., where fires ravaged Oregon this summer, the annual burned area has, on average, gone from less than 250,000 acres in 1985 to more than 1.2 million acres in 2015; human-caused climate change has been blamed for doubling the total area burned over that time.

“Similarly, for fire-ravaged British Columbia, an analysis from this July estimates that climate change has made extreme fire events in western Canada 1.5-6 times more likely.

“So how much worse are things set to get? Scientists are getting far better at untangling the relationship between extreme weather and climate change.

“Pinning any specific environmental event on climate change is a tricky business, though the science of weather attribution has grown in leaps and bounds over the past decades. Individual wildfires are still near the bottom of the list of things that can easily be pegged to a changing climate, thanks to all the other factors in the mix. If people break up forests into smaller chunks through logging or agriculture, that can limit the spread of forest fires; on the other hand, some trees burn faster than others (younger trees are greener, so burn slower), and shrubs under a tree canopy can make fire more intense. A particularly rainy year can paradoxically increase fire risk if the rain comes in springtime, by boosting the volume of vegetation available to burn later in the season. Natural weather patterns like El Niño can have a dramatic effect on precipitation, and so on fire.”

“If we have higher temps, we have a greater probability of fire starting, fire spreading, and fire intensifying.”

Nicola Jones: Stark Evidence: A Warmer World Is Sparking More and Bigger Wildfires – Yale E360

Average Annual Wildfire Number and Size Increasing in the Great Plains

Posted on June 8, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: Large fires occur during periods of high temperature and drought. The fire increase across the North American Great Plains is typical of many other regions undergoing fire regime changes as the Earth warms. Fueled by increasing temperature, drought, and invasive species, the fires will continue increasing. A study appearing in Geophysical Research Papers (GRP) documented dramatic changes since 1985. The study abstract follows the images.

Wildfire grasslands disaster, North American Great Plains, Lon Tonneson

Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984–2011
Authors: Philip E. Dennison, Simon C. Brewer, James D. Arnold, Max A. Moritz (Geophysical Research Letters, April 25, 2014)

Abstract

“Rapid changes in wildfire patterns are documented globally, increasing pressure to identify regions that may experience increases in wildfire in future decades. Temperate grassland and savanna biomes were some of the most frequently burned regions on Earth, however large wildfires have been largely absent from the Great Plains of North America over the last century. In this paper, we conduct an in-depth analysis of changes in large wildfire (>400 ha) regime characteristics over a 30 year period across the Great Plains. For the entire biome, (i) the average number of large wildfires increased from 33.4 + 5.6 per year from 1985-1994 to 116.8 + 28.8 wildfires per year from 2005-2014, (ii) total area burned by large wildfires increased 400%, (iii) over half the ecoregions had greater than a 70% probability of a large wildfire occurring in the last decade, and (iv) seasonality of large wildfires remained relatively similar.” –Victoria M. Donovan, Carissa L. Wonkka, Dirac Twidwell. (Accepted for publication by GRP)

March Climate Madness — Wildfires, Scorching Summer Heat Strike Central and Southwestern U.S. By Winter’s End

Posted on March 21, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: Record heat and winter fires. More on the way.

“In Colorado today the news was one of fire. There, a wildfire just south of Boulder had forced emergency officials to evacuate 1,000 residents as more than 2,000 others were put on alert Sunday. Smoke poured into neighborhoods as dead trees killed by invasive beetles or a developing drought, exploded into flames. Depleted snowpacks along the front range of the Rockies combined with temperatures in the 80s and 90s on Sunday to increase the fire risk. Thankfully, so far, there have been no reports of injuries or property loss. A relieving contrast to the massive fires recently striking Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma — where farmers and communities are still recovering.

“Much of the southwest also experienced record or near-record temperatures. Las Vegas broke new records Sunday as the thermometer struck past 90 (F). Meanwhile, Yuma broke its previous daily record high on Sunday as temperatures rocketed to 98 F.” –Robert Scribbler (Continue reading: March Climate Madness — Wildfires, Scorching Summer Heat Strike Central and Southwestern U.S. By Winter’s End | robertscribbler.)

(Extreme heat builds through the Central and Southwest U.S. on monday as a wildfire forces evacuations south of Boulder, Colorado. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

Fires and drought cook Tennessee – a state represented by climate-change deniers

Posted on December 2, 2016 by GarryRogers

Local resident Ralph Cogdill checks the debris of his house which was ruined by a wildfire in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee on Nov. 30, 2016. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

GR: The “Establishment” supports fossil-fuel companies and denies climate change. The incoming U. S. administration is populated by deniers. The harm caused to wild plants, animals, natural systems, and human society is devastating.

“With my new hope that deniers of climate change will take ownership of the consequences, I am sad to report that this week, terrible wildfires have swept through Tennessee, a southeastern state in the USA. This state is beset by a tremendous drought, as seen by a recent US Drought Monitor map. There currently are severe, extreme, and exceptional drought conditions covering a wide swath of southern states. The causes of drought are combinations of lowered precipitation and higher temperatures.

U.S. Drought Monitor for 22 November 2016. Illustration: National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

“The patterns of drought are the result of many weeks of weather (warm and dry) that have led to the current conditions. The recent high-temperature map from NOAA below provides just one example.

U.S. high temperatures map for 29 November 2016. Photograph: NOAA

“Why do we care about the crazy drought in the southern USA? Because it leads to bad consequences. As I write this post, we can read about the horrific fires in Tennessee that are destroying both natural habitat as well as towns and economies. A video about Gatlinburg Tennessee fires can be seen here. There, wildfires are threatening the resort town. It is too early to tell what economic damages will result.

“Was this fire caused by climate change? The answer is yes. We are now in a world where all of our weather is impacted by humans. We know human-caused warming is making drought and heat more severe – that leads to fires like the one we are seeing. We also know that 2016 will be the hottest year ever recorded and the first time temperatures have reached the critical mark of 1C (1.8F) above normal.” –John Abraham (continue reading: Fires and drought cook Tennessee – a state represented by climate deniers)

The Fate of Trees: How Climate Change May Alter Forests Worldwide

Posted on March 17, 2015 by GarryRogers

By the end of the century, the woodlands of the Southwest will likely be reduced to weeds and shrubs. And scientists worry that the rest of the planet may see similar effects

Source: www.rollingstone.com

GR: Continued harvest (logging and livestock grazing) will work with wildfires to remove long-lived species. This is already visible in arid regions.

Drought, fire management and land use changes have led to denser forests in California

Posted on January 20, 2015 by GarryRogers

“A team of researchers with members from several institutions in the U.S. has found that compared to the beginning of the last century, California’s forests are more dense, with fewer large trees, more small growth and are a much bigger risk for fires. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe how they compared forest surveys over the past century and the changes they noted and what it might mean for the future of forest management in the state.

“In the past, before people arrived, fires, generally due to lightening strikes would start, and burn thousands of acres before dying natural deaths. That would allow for new growth, which would eventually lead to tall tree growth. Now, whenever a fire starts, it is put out as quickly as possible to protect homes and businesses in the area. The result is highly dense forests with dry small trees—the perfect conditions for fires to start and spread very quickly. The researchers also found that oak trees have grown more numerous while pine populations have declined—another result of the drier climate.”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-01-drought-denser-forests-california.html#jCp

GR: The researchers need to test their assumption that fire prevention and suppression have been effective. Even though fire-fighting budgets are growing, fire size is increasing.

It is interesting that large trees are fewer now. Could that be because of logging? And the spread of oak trees, is that influenced by logging or cattle grazing? The research conclusions seem to suggest that things are going to get back to what the researchers consider normal now that fires are becoming larger and more frequent. All that small growth that is preventing large trees will get burned up.

Why the White House posted a video linking the California wildfires to climate change

Posted on August 5, 2014 by GarryRogers

Firefighter Keith McMillen at a controlled burn in Washington state. (David Ryder/Reuters)

Wildfires are tangible. Carbon dioxide is not.

“Here’s the tricky thing about President Obama’s proposal to cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030: In order for people to support the move, they need to understand the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. They need to accept that the proposal — a mandate being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency — will help curtail global warming. And they need to prioritize those cuts over concerns — more loudly articulated by opponents — that the cuts will hurt the economy.

“So the White House is starting that fight on YouTube.

“The administration released a video Tuesday aimed at clarifying the link between climate change and one of the most tangible products of climate change: wildfires. Wildfires have been an an increasing topic of conversation on Capitol Hill, thanks both to the record wildfire years we’ve had this decade and to a strain on funding to fight them.”

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

GR: Fire fighters know that climate controls fire occurrence. Day to day variations and annual averages of temperature, humidity, wind, and fuel are principal ingredients in fire severity and spread. As the normal gradient from arctic to tropics breaks down and the jet stream wanders and stalls, occasional high-fire-danger conditions can persist long enough for destructive fires to spread far beyond historical experience.

However, the destructive nature of human-caused climate change is so severe that a 30% emissions cut in 15 years is pointless. We need stronger medicine.

Late June 2014: Arctic in Hot Water as Sea Ice Thins and Tundra Fires Erupt

Posted on June 25, 2014 by GarryRogers

Huge tundra fire smoke plumes just to the right of the center.

“Atmospheric warming due to human-caused climate change. It’s the general measure we’ve used to track a devastating and ongoing heat amplification due to a terrible greenhouse gas emission. But if we were to look for where the greatest amount of that heat has accumulated, it would be in the world’s oceans. For from its air-contacting surface to its depths thousands of meters below, the World Ocean has captured 93.4% of the total heat forcing humans have already unleashed. The remainder is almost evenly divided between the atmosphere, the continents, and the ice.”

Source: robertscribbler.wordpress.com

GR: Don’t miss these informative discussions of global-warming events around the world.