“If climate change drives temperature up a degree or two,” goes the common dismissal, “how bad could that be?”
Here’s an example: Higher temperatures draw moisture out of live and dead trees and brush, making them more flammable. The heat also can alter precipitation, as well as shift spring thaw earlier, lengthening the fire season. A one degree Celsius climb in average global temperature could cause the median area burned annually by wildfires in parts of the American West to increase up to sixfold. “A one-degree rise could occur well before 2050,” notes Jeremy Littell, a climate and fire researcher at the University of Washington, who created the projections with the U.S. Forest Service and other institutions.
Scientists in Canada have reached similar conclusions about their western region. The U.S. prediction applies to area burned during median fire years; extreme fire years would consume still more area. Unfortunately, as temperature goes up, Littell predicts, “what were historically big fire years may become more frequent.”
— Mark Fischetti
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32 Comments
Add CommentIf real science is "We think x because of y evidence and further discuss the meaning of x and further evidence for and against x. The standing of x is also judged based upon peer-reviewed publications about research into x." How is Climate Change or Global Warming _not_ real science?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see, thousands of scientists in dozens of different countries with many decades of research and data agree that the climate is changing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe US military agrees on that also and is talking measures to deal with it -- yet, because you hold a certain warped political belief (with ZERO evidence presented) EVERYONE else should stop?
Please stop even posting your lame comments.
Climate change is complex. What isn't mentioned is that global warming increases ocean evaporation which leads to increased rainfall in the US Northwest. Rather than having shorter winters and longer summers, we are actually seeing the rainy season last into June (rather than early May) and begin again in September (rather than late October). The winters are warmer though, decreasing snowpack, which decreases river flows needed to generate hydroelectricity, which necessitates burning more fossil fuels, which leads to more global warming, which increases ocean evaporations... la, la, la...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, increased rain also decreases the likelihood of fires, which was overlooked in this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the areas that already get enough rainfall will get more, and in more frequent bursts like downpours and monster thunderstorms. The areas that are already dry will dry out more as warmer average temperatures suck moisture out of the soil more quickly. The infographic shows that areas that already have drought and wildfire problems will see more of the same in the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the last seven months, the world has been cooling. This is because a la Nina set in about this time last year. As the la Nina yet still exists, cooling will continue until the end of the year. http://web.me.com/bryanleyland/Site_3/Global_Cooling.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNone of the climate scientists and none of the computer climate models predicted this cooling. If the climate models cannot predict the El Niño/la Nina effect, which is the major climatic disturbance in the world, how can we expect them to predict future climate?
On top of that, history tells us that a long solar cycle (which we have just experienced) is followed by calling. So we can expect the cooling to continue.
Recent research shows that cosmic rays do have an effect on the climate and this explains the past warming and the current cooling phase. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-estimate/
Dangerous global warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases does not survive the scientific test. It exists only in the minds of those who program the climate models with a climate sensitivity factor that generates warming if carbon dioxide increases. Unfortunately, more and more research shows that this climate sensitivity factor is much too high. If it is assigned a reasonable value, man-made global warming evaporates.
All this shows why it is so hard to get action on reducing our affect on climate change. There are many people who just want the "bottom line," the answer, without all the mind-numbing analytics. But when someone gives an answer and an example of climate change causing it, others, being of a analytical sort, start proposing alternative explanations --which is what analytical types live (not a typo) to do. Then others cherry pick the arguments and try to refute the whole thing. Let me ask two questions. Do you know if your house or apartment is going to burn down? Do you pay for insurance even if you don't know?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to Burban07: I do know that there is a real risk that my house will burn down. Although I don't know if or when it might happen, there is no doubt that the risk exists. And there is no doubt that buying insurance will mitigate this risk.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith man made global warming, there is no hard evidence that the risk exists. The climate changes naturally and there is no convincing evidence that what we have seen over the last 50 years is other than natural climate change.
But even more importantly, even if the risk was real, there is no evidence that the actions that are being taken–and proposed– would make a significant difference. For instance, squandering more than $1 trillion on renewable energy will make a trivial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. All it will do is push up the price of power. This will seriously reduce economic wealth and make it more difficult to cope with natural climate change
The climate changes naturally and what we need to do is prepare for climate change–be it cooling or warming. Right now, cooling seems to be a significant risk.
KiwiBuzz,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo say "there is no hard evidence" of the risk and "no evidence" of possible difference is clearly mistaken. If there is no evidence how could so many very smart people be convinced of both?
I suggest you take a look at the website http://www.skepticalscience.com/ (you may have to copy and paste the link). In the Arguments section the website lists 147 arguments against Global Warming, and then provides basic, intermediate, and for some issues advanced explanations of "what the science says" complete with the evidence.
Climate change, or the earth a variable distance from the sun?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight now, there are three gas giants on the same orbital side of the sun.
This causes the sun to offset its position to maintain the centre of gravity of the solasr system. Note that this solar offset is the process used to find planets about distant stars (the star appears to wobble).
Because the sun is no longer the centre of the earth's orbit, our distance can vary by anything up to 3%. It is not that big a variation now, but very simply, every 1% variation in our distance to the sun produces about 2.2% variation in the amount of solar energy we receive.
For the northern hemisphere, at present it is closest to the sun during summer, and furthest from the sun in winter, hence big weather swings. In the southern hemisphere, where I live (New Zealand)it is converse, so our summers are not so hot, the winters not so cold.
This phenomenon occurs regularly, on about a thousand year cycle.
For example, grapes grew outdoors in Britain in the times of Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, and at present.
Again, Leif Erikson sailed from Vinland (the place of vines, now called Greenland) to what is now the USA around 930AD
In the past, CO2 in the atmosphere has been at about 20 TIMES the present level, and all that happened was that plants of all sorts grew rampant.
"Recent research shows that cosmic rays... http://www.drroyspencer. com">>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, when you dine at Roy Spencer's science cafe it is beneficial to observe the context of his understanding in other areas of science. Observe:
"I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world..."
--Penfold, Michael (2007). The Evolution Crisis.
For specific debunks of his climate errors, see for instance this gem:
"How to cook a graph in three easy lessons"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-graph-in-three-easy-lessons/#more-567
On the "rays," try:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/still-not-convincing/
The remedy should be as obvious as going underground...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRussia has been building three enormous underground urban environments for about ten years now.... They clearly intend to survive the damages from hostile climate change. The USA is just too busy jerkinghoff in Congress to hear death knocking at the door... The western US will become another Gobi desert and who is alive now that will remember what was once ABOVE ground?
Finally, someone else who thinks logically! The real issue isn't climate change or global warming/cooling - these have been occurring for millions of years long before man arrived. The issue is CO2! Does it cause warming? Very likely, along with many other gases. Are we humans putting to much of it in the air? Very likely, but not significantly so. Is trade of carbon credits going to help? Absolutely not! It is a total scam to help the major polluters of this world to ease their guilty consciences and, regardless of how many carbon credits they buy, they will continue to pour more pollution into the atmosphere. The offsets they are buying will not even come close to the amount being bought!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Kiwibuzz states, we need to prepare for both extremes of global warming and cooling. Between the warming and cooling extremes, climate will change. We have adapted our entire existence to climate all around the world. Instead of wasting trillions of dollars on trying to control climate, we should be spending that money learning how to survive in all its extremes.
This doesn't mean I, nor, I am sure, Kiwibuzz, condone burning fossil fuels recklessly. We need to cut pollution, the kind that is killing us by breathing it and poisoning our soils, and continue trying to improve atomic, solar, wind, geothermal and hydraulic power sources. Currently, none of those except atomic are proven economically feasible and I am sure many will say the same about atomic power. There are many problems associated with each that still need to be resolved.
Will the oceans rise? Very likely, but we will just have to move to higher ground. Will crops suffer? Most likely, but through genetics we can solve that problem. Will people starve? Highly likely, but natural selection has been killing us and other life off for millions of years! There is a limit to what this beautiful earth can support - we just refuse to acknowledge that and have no idea where that limit is. Science keeps boosting that limit, but hasn't boosted our intelligence enough to realize we need to control population.
The title of this webpage would seem to be postdictive at best:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWildfires scorching the U.S. West
http://articles.cnn.com/2006-06-22/us/western.wildfires_1_homes-or-structures-fire-season-temperatures-and-higher-humidity?_s=PM:US
How does the threat surrounding the proposed increase of one degree Celsius in average global temperature square with the following?:
“...[O]ne of the reasons paleontologists today believe one of the reasons dinosaurs grew so large, was that they weren’t cold-blooded like today’s lizards; they were lukewarm-blooded....But another reason for their size may have been the sweltering oxygen-rich environment that came to dominate the dinosaur era; an environment triggered by volcanism....It was global warming gone wild; CO2 levels increased over 500 percent and temperatures soared. In the greenhouse conditions this created, huge tropical forests spread over many of the continents....Many scientists believe that evolving for millions of years, in this warm, oxygen-rich world, allowed the lukewarm-blooded dinosaurs to reach their enormous sizes. Huge dinosaurs may have been a biological response to a volcanically over-active planet....65 million years ago. The planet was lush. Vegetation was thick on the surface. Living things were prospering like never before.”
[2007 DVD. How the Earth was Made. London: Pioneer Productions for the History Channel, 55 min., ff., 1 hr., 3 min.]
Bill Crofut,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer is in your question, quoting from an article in http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past-intermediate.htm
But something very important and very obvious changed over the geologic time scales involved that makes such simple comparison irrelevant: Plants. Lots of plants. Gymnosperms (conifers etc) originated in the late Devonian-early Carboniferous (380-300 Mya) and angiosperms (flowering plants) in the Cretaceous (100 Mya). All that carbon in the Carboniferous coalbeds? Dead plants that took CO2 out of the atmosphere. The downward trend from the Cretaceous[145 - 65 Myr] forward? More plants. And now we've turned the downward CO2 trend around despite a world rich in plants... maybe we can hope that a whole new class of plant life comes to our rescue... but that would require evolution and the science is still uncertain on that too.
Climatologist Dana Royer says it best: "the geologic record [over 500 million years]contains a treasure trove of 'alternative Earths' that allow scientists to study how the various components of the Earth system respond to a range of climatic forcings." Past periods of higher CO2 do not contradict the notion that CO2 warms global temperatures. On the contrary, they confirm the close coupling between CO2 and climate.
Burban07,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the information available to me, even Dr. Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the Univeristy of Wisconsin, believes the temperature of the Earth is increasing, but has nothing to do with what man is doing. He said, “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling CO2.”
[John Vennari. 2009 CD. The Global Warming Fraud: Under the Green Thumb of False Science. Buffalo: Oltyn Library Services, track 6]
Climatologist Dana Royer's comment would seem to confirm climate is a cyclic phenomenon.
Dr. Bryson is in a distinct minority among his peers, and even his own institute.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a quote from the Q&A section of the Wisconsin Inititative on Climate Change (http://www.wicci.wisc.edu/faq.php),"Thus, these results show that rising levels of greenhouse gases, produced by human activities, are warming the planet."
Second, A survey of 3,146 earth scientists asked the question "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" (Doran 2009). "97.5% of climatologists who actively publish research on climate change responded yes. As the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement that humans are significantly changing global temperatures."
My own opinion is that an underlying trouble is research doesn't "prove" anything. As one of my heros, Richard Feynman, said (quoting loosely), "The best you can hope for in science is 'not yet disproven'." So, those waiting for scientists to "prove" climate change are in for a very long wait.
Finally, a sort of flippant analogy, Say you're camping on a nice beach in a fishing town, really enjoying yourself. Gradually, you notice all the local farmers & fishermen are yelling that there is a Tsunami coming and you need to leave. You think you're really enjoying it where you are. You notice the water level is lower than usual so how could there be a big wave? And you see a couple of guys by the snack bar saying "it's not proven, don't worry, come have a hot dog, those folks are just farmers & fisherman, what do they know about weather and ocean?" Who do you believe; do you move?
I'm sorry Burban07 but your analogy is ludicrous. Any person with an ounce of intelligence and knowledge of earthquakes would immediately respond to local knowledge and the drop in seawater. They would realize the guys at the snack bar have had one to many drinks and run for the high ground.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust because 97.5% of an exclusive group of climatologists say CO2 is the culprit and our contributions are making it worse doesn't necessarily make it true. Shit, they can't even get short term predictions right most of the time because climate is such a complicated subject. We do not know if we have all the factors yet, in their algorithms, for their many different computer models on climate. History has many examples of the lonely dissenting voice proven correct in the long run. Dr. Bryson may be one of that small group of dissenters.
And besides, why do we think global warming is bad? Greenland got its name because it was once green! No ice! Wooly mammoths and maybe some dinosaurs once roamed the arctic! We, supposedly the most advanced mammals on this earth, can surely turn our skills and knowledge to learning how to adapt and live in a warmer climate just surely as at sometime in the future we may have to learn to live in an ice covered planet.
Instead of running around screaming the sky is warming, the sky is warming we should instead look at reducing our fuel consumption because we know it pollutes the air we breathe and because we know eventually we will run out of fossil fuels. Instead of wasting huge sums of money on trying to maintain our current climate we should be using that money to learning how to adapt.
Regarding, "Any person with an ounce of intelligence and knowledge of earthquakes would immediately respond to local knowledge and the drop in seawater. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you look at the videos of the Christmas Tsunami, you will see that there are apparently a lot of people who don't meet your criteria.
Second paragraph: Nope, I'm sure not going to listen to what 97.5% of cardiologists say about my heart condition; I'm going with the 2-3 that say I'll be safe to carry on as I have been. Nevermind that you clearly don't understand the difference between a single roll of a die and its mean roll. BTW, that lone voice waiting to be proven right was Arrhenius back in 1896. Time has born him out.
"No ice!"
Really? How would you explain the GIS being much older than the name "Greenland"?
The problem with a warming world is not so much the temperature. Patterns of rain change and our industrial agriculture is kind of optimized for the current patterns. And, a fairly significant portion of the world's population live on land that won't be. They can move, but I don't think the millions will find much in the way of good places to live that aren't already full of people. By about 2050, under BAU, there will be major changes in the ocean food web because of acidification. A lot of people eat fish that may not survive. The problem isn't the temperature that people have to deal with; the problem is how do you feed an increasing population under diminished carrying capacity.
High temperatures do not draw water out of living plants. High temperatures hydrate living plants by boosting evaporation at the leaf cover, driving the pump plants use to draw water. This has been known for over a decade, what is this nonsense? By the author's logic, all our palm and date trees catastrophically burned to the ground thousands of years ago, so Palm Springs, California must be a mirage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven global warming evaporates the oceans waters, we would expect a wetter and more humid world with shrinking deserts and wetter forests. Yet the Gobi desert has expanded over the last decade and, as the authors admit, forest fires have increased -- precisely the results expected from a cooling period. Yes, the cooling that has been documented over the last decade.
The water drawn out of plants has to come from the soil and there is only so much water in there. As temperatures increase, this rate increases as well, drawing moisture out more quickly. This is why deserts and forest fires expand in a warming world and that IS predicted by climatologists. There is a measurable %4 increase in the amount of water vapor in tha air versus 30 years ago. This amplifies the warming in a positive feedback loop, but does not affect air currents as you would expect. Arid places are still dry, and dry out quicker with the higher temperatures. Wet places are still wet, but they get their rain in massive downpours because of the extra heat and water vapor in the air. This is why Texas had those extreme fires while the Mississippi River was having historic floods and tornadoes just a few hundred miles to the east.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBurban07 (comment 17),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Dr. Bryson is in the minority, what is your assessment of the following?:
Joseph Dalia, Director of Meteorology at the Weather Channel and former Chief of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecast: "Carbon dioxide is .038% of our atmosphere by volume. Only 2.75% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is generated by man. The amount we emit is said to be up from 1% a decade ago, but despite the increase in emissions, the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa remains the same as the long-term average; .45% per year. We are responsible for .001% of this atmosphere. If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, man-made CO2 contribution today would be the equivalent of the linoleum on the first floor."
[John Vennari. 2009 CD. The Global Warming Fraud: Under the Green Thumb of False Science. Buffalo: Oltyn Library Services, track 6]
How does the "survey of 3,146 earth scientists" compare with the following?:
9029 Ph.D. scientists and 22,458 others: http://www.petitionproject.org/
Bill Crofut, Mr. Dalia is retired, here is what the Weather Channel says today, see http://www.weather.com/encyclopedia/global/index.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"More than a century's worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that <b>the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists."</b> [emphasis added, at least I tried adding]
"Humans are also changing the climate on a more localized level. The replacement of vegetation by buildings and roads is causing temperature increases through what's known as the urban heat island effect. In addition, land use changes are affecting impacts from weather phenomena. For example, urbanization and deforestation can cause an increased tendency for flash floods and mudslides from heavy rain. Deforestation also produces a climate change "feedback" by depleting a source which absorbs carbon dioxide."
Regarding the number of scientists versus number in the survey, the survey is a huge portion. Most surveys take far fewer responses to sample millions of people, and are nearly always proven right (when it can be proven) within their published margin of error.
Sorry my answer to this is so much longer than your question. This is where you've got me beat. People are a lot more likely to remember your short question than my long answer.
KiwiBuzz,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot to comment regarding the fire insurance thing, just for fun. There actually is substantial chance that insurance would not mitigate your fire risk. Have you seen the investigations of insurance companies denying valid claims? For a parallel, look up Katrina and flood insurance claim payments -- the payment history varied wildly for similar or identical conditions depending on the insurance company.
Burban07,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding part of your answer, "computer model simulations," it's a truism that these tools are not self-generated; someone has to provide the input data that will be electronically sorted to provide the output data. There is always the outside chance of bias. Regarding another part of your answer, "historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings," here's a quote from Prof. Michael Mann, arguably the father of the agw movement: ‘”Multiproxy” methods exploit the
complementary strengths of each of these proxies to reconstruct large-scale climate changes in past centuries.’
[2002. The Value of Multiple Proxies. SCIENCE, vol 297, 30 August, pp. 1481-1482]
Yet, he admitted the proxies used—-tree-ring data, coral data, ice core data and historical documentary climate records—-each has limitations. That would seem to me to dampen the level of confidence that can be accorded these tools.
The fire insurance analogy is easily answered. What if the premium for the insurance is everything you own? Not likely you'll be signing up. Cap and Trade suggest we should unilaterally destroy our economy, effectively raising China to the position of the World's lone superpower because they will have none of this. Without the resources of anything left of a viable economy, we are left helpless to do anything to prepare for an ever-warming world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere are you getting the data backing up your assertion that Cap & Trade would "unilaterally destroy our economy"? This is a very exceptional statement that MUST be backed up by exceptional data to be believed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom what I've seen, the cost to insure ourselves against dangerous climate change impacts ranges from $84 per household PER YEAR to the wildly pessemistic estimate of $1500 per household PER YEAR done by the right-wing Heritage Foundation:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-limits-economy.htm
Considering that these forest fires, along with 95% of glaciers retreating world-wide, ocean acidification, expanding deserts, reduced crop yields, plummeting polar ice coverage, and other warning signs have already been observed (earlier and in GREATER magnitude than they were forecast just a decade or so ago), man-made climate change is going to have an increasingly real and largely negative effect on society. Even the unrealistic, worst-case prediction of $1500 per year is a bargain compared to the costs that we're already beginning to pay and will only pay more for in the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, Burban07, but that's not a very cogent point regarding insurance companies. Insurance companies that deny valid claims are few and far between. People complain of claims being denied, but it is almost always their own doing. Now, stuff happens, of course, but reputable insurance companies cannot afford to lose face by denying valid claims, nor can they pay every invalid claim made by people who have no right to file a claim. Unfortunately for many of the people in the Katrina issue, they did not have insurance.
RES IPSA LOQUITUR, your hysteria speaks for itself.
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