Emergency evaluations…

[Blaithin]

One could wonder at the correlation between increased fires since the 70s and increase in population as well as activities in fire prone areas. Even without getting into changes in management preferences having unfortunate repercussions.

But why would one do that when one could just say “ClImAtE cHaNgE”.

As for trees, well, it’s not like they will even really grow in many places. Hard to say we all need them when some of us may live places that trees, and even bushes, are hard to establish and keep alive.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

One could wonder at the correlation between increased fires since the 70s and increase in population as well as activities in fire prone areas. Even without getting into changes in management preferences having unfortunate repercussions.

But why would one do that when one could just say “ClImAtE cHaNgE”.

As for trees, well, it’s not like they will even really grow in many places. Hard to say we all need them when some of us may live places that trees, and even bushes, are hard to establish and keep alive.

Or it could just be because the date range was Cherry picked to hide the actual long-term decline in all measures of forest fires. As with most things in climate change, the data is Cherry picked to suit the agenda. And when reality contradicts the data, start your own fires.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/13/caught-inconvenient-u-s-wildfire-data-has-been-disappeared-by-national-interagency-fire-center-nifc_fire/

[chuckChuck]

And the climate change deniers rely on cherry picked data and off the rails boneheaded ideas like we are going to run out of C02 if we don't keep burning fossil fuels!

Show us any credible science organization that says that the number and area of forest fires is not increasing a long with the intensity of fires and that climate change is not having a role.

We are waiting.

[Blaithin]

We aren’t waiting for anything.

You might be, but please don’t group me with you.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[AlbertaFarmer5]

And the same corrupt dishonest tactics are happening in all of the supposed climate change science. And it isn't limited to climate change either.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[cropgrower]

. climate change is getting a bit of help i think !

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Interestingly enough, the only region showing an increase is Parks Canada. Who would have guessed that criminally mismanaging forests would result in an increase in fires?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[chuckChuck]

https://www.drought.gov/news/study-shows-climate-change-main-driver-increasing-fire-weather-western-us

Study Shows That Climate Change is the Main Driver of Increasing Fire Weather in the Western U.S.

Although wildfire is part of the natural ecosystem cycle over the western U.S., its intensity and frequency has been increasing at an alarming rate in recent decades. A new study

shows that climate change is the main driver of this increase in fire weather in the western United States. And even though wetter and cooler conditions could offer brief respites, more intense and frequent wildfires and aridification in the western states will continue with rising temperatures.

During 1984–2000, 1.69 million acres burned over 11 states. It doubled in size to ~3.35 million acres during 2001–2018. In 2020, the total annual burned area jumped to 8.8 million acres, more than five times of that in 1984–2000. Such rapid increase of wildfires has become a major threat to lives, property, public health, water resource quality, and local and regional economies over the western U.S. and beyond.

The leading cause of the rapid increase of wildfires over the western U.S. is the rapid increase of surface air vapor pressure deficit, or VPD, a measure of how thirsty the atmosphere is. When VPD is higher, the air is hot and dry and draws more moisture from soil and plants, which not only increases biofuel flammability, but also reduces river flows and reservoir levels.

Previous studies have shown that the rapid increase of VPD over the western U.S. in recent decades was caused in part by climate change due to an increase in human emissions of greenhouse gases. However, it was previously not clear whether human-caused climate change or natural variation of weather patterns was the main cause. Consequently, it was not known if VPD could be expected to lessen again at some point, or further increase with continued anthropogenic warming.

In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

, researchers with the University of California, Los Angeles applied artificial intelligence to climate and wildfire data to answer this question. The study found that the warming of surface temperature contributed to 80% of the VPD increase across the western U.S between 1979–2020. Only 32% of the increase in VPD in this region during this period was caused by changes in weather patterns, which is mostly due to natural climate variability. The remaining 68% of the increase in VPD is explained by human-caused global warming. This study is part of NOAA Drought Task Force IV research funded by NIDIS through NOAA’s Climate Program Office Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections Program (MAPP). The recent NOAA Drought Task Force Report on the Southwestern U.S. Drought also showed that high VPD is a strong contributor to the 2020–2021 drought over the southwestern U.S., including California and Nevada.

The researchers also took a further look at the 2020 August Complex wildfire, the largest wildfire in California history that burned more than a million acres. Unprecedentedly high VPD occurred during the month the fire began. They found that human-induced warming likely explains 50% of the VPD, although estimates are likely to be conservative because the weather pattern change that is assumed to be purely natural in this study could be partially influenced by climate change. Indeed, the authors analyzed an ensemble of climate model simulations, which suggested that climate change accounts for 88% of the increase in VPD. Thus, the authors suggest that the actual anthropogenic contribution is likely between 68% and 88%.

This study shows that western United States has passed a critical threshold since about 2000, and human-caused climate change is now the dominant contributor to the increase of wildfire risk. It also suggests that the increase of VPD since 2000 is dominated by aridification due to climate change. Thus, even though wetter and cooler conditions could offer brief respites, VPD will continue increasing, leading to more intense and more frequent wildfires and aridification in the western states overall.

The paper is authored by Yizhou Zhuang, Rong Fu, Alex Hall, and Robert Dickinson in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Benjamin Santer, a former atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

[chuckChuck]

Observed increases in extreme fire weather driven by atmospheric humidity and temperature

Piyush Jain, Dante Castellanos-Acuna, Sean C. P. Coogan, John T. Abatzoglou & Mike D. Flannigan

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 63–70 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Recent increases in regional wildfire activity have been linked to climate change. Here, we analyse trends in observed global extreme fire weather and their meteorological drivers from 1979 to 2020 using the ERA5 reanalysis. Trends in annual extreme (95th percentile) values of the fire weather index (FWI95), initial spread index (ISI95) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD95) varied regionally, with global increases in mean values of 14, 12 and 12%, respectively. Significant increases occurred over a quarter to almost half of the global burnable land mass. Decreasing relative humidity was a driver of over three-quarters of significant increases in FWI95 and ISI95, while increasing temperature was a driver for 40% of significant trends. Trends in VPD95 were predominantly associated with increasing temperature. These trends are likely to continue, as climate change projections suggest global decreases in relative humidity and increases in temperature that may increase future fire risk where fuels remain abundant.