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Russian/North American Forest Fires

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by icarus, Aug 2, 2010.

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  1. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    So, as predicted, unprecedented heat waves have hit Russia, with temperature NEVER before seen, triggering a huge number of wild fires, unlike anyone has ever seen before! Couple that with what is turning into a vicious fire season in parts of the American west, and particularly in B.C. Canada and I contend that this is yet another example of what is to come with global warming. Yes, it is weather, but take enough our of "ordinary" weather events back, to back, to back and one can only conclude that the prediction of climate experts in the last decade or so, are indeed coming true.

    In B.C. there are ~350 fires of significance burning, and we are just at the beginning of the real fire season. Add to that, the huge pine bark beetle kill across vast acreages and you have a recipe for a conflagration like we have not seen ever. It may not come this summer, but it certainly will come.

    So all you deniers, feel free to write this off as another rant by a "warmist" intent on taking over your freedom, but the view with so much sand in your eyes must be at the very least, cloudy.

    Icarus
     
    #1 icarus, Aug 2, 2010
  2. Politburo

    Politburo Active Member

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    The goalposts will just move again. And in fact it's already happened. ClimateGate turned out to be nothing, as expected, so the story changed again. It's no longer "they're faking the data!1". The deniers are back to "sure there's warming, but it's natural, and people in higher latitudes will be able to grow more food so I don't see why you're concerned."
     
    #2 Politburo, Aug 2, 2010
  3. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    The air has a smokey tinge to it and the light a strange yellow cast. The most recent storm started about 300 new fires that we know of so far. A water bomber crashed on the weekend, killing two pilots, and started yet another fire. Campfires are banned, and some parks are closed to vehicles. This happens every summer now, but used to be a rarity.

    Part of it is the increasingly hot weather and more frequent storms, and part of it is our fire suppression strategies. Pine beetles that not so many years ago were killed off by colder winters are thriving further North, and laying waste to vast tracts of forest. And our fire suppression strategies have also also increased the fuel load. By not allowing smaller fires to burn out and create grassy areas, we've actually increased the chance of catastrophic fires.

    It's just like SimEarth. The temperatures rise, storms and fires increase in both frequency and severity, and surface water dries up. Eventually the oceans boil off, and 95% of the lifeforms are killed off in a classic mass extinction. Which is a real pain when you've nursed an intelligent civilisation along for millions of years. I never did agree with the only win scenario, which was to invoke the Monolith icon in the hopes of starting planetary migration.
     
    #3 hyo silver, Aug 2, 2010
  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    with only a hundred years left, more or less, i've lost my enthusiasm.:)
     
    #4 bisco, Aug 2, 2010
  5. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    When its unseasonably cold,thats only the weather .
    When its unseasonably hot ,thats AGW.
     
    #5 mojo, Aug 2, 2010
  6. drees

    drees Senior Member

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    #6 drees, Aug 2, 2010
  7. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    I blame the volcano! ;)
     
    #7 GrumpyCabbie, Aug 2, 2010
  8. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    First, no one ever suggested that climate change would bring uniform warming. What the models do suggest, is a general disruption of "normal climate". Some areas warmer, others cooler, some drier, some wetter, but on balance the trend over all will be warmer

    Second, as an interesting anecdote, I suggest you compile a list of "unseasonably cold" events world wide in the last ten years, and then compile a similar list of "unseasonably warm" events world wide. I would posit (even bet!) that the latter out numbers the former by ~10/1. That my friend is climate change, not weather!


    Finally, I among other have equated unusually cold events to climate change as well. For example, last winters unusual snow through out the central part of the country was unusual for the areas affected. But what got lots less notice were temperature/precipitation anomalies over a broader part of the world, including much of N. America. Events like record warm in the Pac. NW, record warm and low precip in north central Canada, record early ice out in much of North America, just to mention a few.

    You really should begin to pay a bit better attention to the world around you!

    PS. Please also note that today, Parts of Pakistan is experiencing the worst flooding ever! What is it going to take to convince you deniers that the sky is indeed falling!
     
    #8 icarus, Aug 2, 2010
  9. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    That's devine intervention to punish them for burning an effigie of David Cameron our PM.

    BBC News - Pakistan summons UK envoy over PM Cameron's remarks


    Or put it another way, you can come up with an answer for anything! Climate Change, Global Warming, Devine intervention, whatever.
     
    #9 GrumpyCabbie, Aug 2, 2010
  10. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i used to like our climate here in new england. now, i find that it's either too cold or too hot. or i'm going thru the change.:rolleyes:
     
    #10 bisco, Aug 2, 2010
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Which is exactly the problem with posts like this. The Russian fires don't really do anything to substantiate global warming, but when these things are used as the aha moment, or Katrina, or the fake polar bear video then when cold events happen they seem like to aha your wrong moment. The fires are just fires. You need to look at world wide temperatures over decades and they are warming. I really thought the gore igloo was funny since he seemed to point to a couple of these events as proof.

    That or a bad memory. If you don't like the climate in new england you can move. I moved to california and found the weather better but the people worse:cool: so I moved back.
     
    #11 austingreen, Aug 2, 2010
  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    funny, i was thinking napa. are the people bad there? they're not that great in new england, at least, not compared to me!:D
     
    #12 bisco, Aug 2, 2010
  13. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Napa has great weather. I don't really mean to dis the californians, but I lived in Palo Alto. Everyone seemed to be work-a-holics, which also breeds kind of a fake nice. I'm sure many californians would have complaints about austinites too. Which is just how we like it:cool:
     
    #13 austingreen, Aug 2, 2010
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  14. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    I do think you make a good point. All this is clearly anecdotal but that said, if you take the vast amount of anecdotes over the years and it does add up to something. The fires are merely symptomatic of the issue. The real issue is the record heat, coupled with drought, brings the net result,, wild fires. A completely natural phenomena, exacerbated by climate change.

    Bottom line is, I believe the fast majority of climate scientific consensus that global warming (climate change) is real, it is happening now, the consequences are modeled but not entirely predictable, but events like the heat and fires in Russia, or the Floods in Pakistan that are happening simultaneously, are entirely with in the range of general models and predictions. These events should come as no surprise to anyone.

    I merely point these type of events out in an attempt (fruitless no doubt) to show the deniers that they have been sold a bill of goods. If scientific methods predict a series of possible(probable) events, and those events actually happen it seems logical that the science is probably pretty reliable. No climate scientist (that I know of) predicted that on August 1 2010, there would be record heat in Russia or record floods in Pakistan. What the science does predict is that these sort of events will become more frequent and indeed more severe.
     
    #14 icarus, Aug 2, 2010
  15. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    IMHO their is strong evidence that there is global warming and that man is contributing to it. But I have been in discussions with deniers before, and anecdotal evidence always has a counter anecdote. That is all I was trying to point out.
     
    #15 austingreen, Aug 2, 2010
  16. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    I gotcha,

    My point is, the anecdotal evidence (while it can be countered (he said/she said) by other anecdotes, the vast preponderance of evidence confirms the models, and more or less agrees with the hypothesis, ergo one has to be increasingly blind to ignore the evidence.
     
    #16 icarus, Aug 2, 2010
  17. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I don't like anecdotal data because it is often adds up to very severe contamination by selection and confirmation biases.
    10:1? I strongly suspect a confirmation bias.
    How are we separating flooding caused by global climate change from that caused by local de-vegetation and development, e.g. the ever expanding reach of artificial impervious surfaces causing more storm water to immediately enter the rivers?

    - - - -
    I am neither an AGW denier nor full believer, but more of a partial believer. Cliff Mass, an area meteorologist and atmospheric sciences professor, is very good at pointing out some of the overhyped AGW reports: Mis-communicating Global Warming.
     
    #17 fuzzy1, Aug 2, 2010
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  18. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    Fuzzy,

    . "Second, as an interesting anecdote, I suggest you compile a list of "unseasonably cold" events world wide in the last ten years, and then compile a similar list of "unseasonably warm" events world wide. I would posit (even bet!) that the latter out numbers the former by ~10/1. That my friend is climate change, not weather!"

    Just to be clear, I have no evidence of this. I am merely guessing that warming event would out number cooling events by ~10/1.

    "How are we separating flooding caused by global climate change from that caused by local de-vegetation and development, e.g. the ever expanding reach of artificial impervious surfaces causing more storm water to immediately enter the rivers?"


    Good question, but what I am hearing is record rainfalls. Also local de-vegetation can indeed be a climate change issue as well. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-but-pakistan-is-dying-for-water-2040617.html)
     
    #18 icarus, Aug 2, 2010
  19. drees

    drees Senior Member

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    Not quite 10x more, but currently hot weather records are broken about 2x more frequently than cold weather records and appears to be trending up.

    33% of record warm temperatures for countries have occurred in the last 10 years.

    14 countries this year have set record warm temperatures.
    1 country this year has set a record cold temperature.

    By that metric - hot weather records are going 14:1, well above icarus' guess of 10:1 - not unexpected given that this year is shaping up to be the hottest on record.
     
    #19 drees, Aug 3, 2010
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  20. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    2X seems much more realistic to me than 14X, but that is my own confirmation bias. And the former should be based on a much better sample size than the latter.

    Can you point to a source? I can't judge or quote this without more detail. And past stories that I saw have never indicated how many records should appear in a random unbiased year. That is a necessary point out here where much recordkeeping history is fairly short.
     
    #20 fuzzy1, Aug 3, 2010
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