Climate Change Increases Wild Fires

First let me check ... are all those denialists who have been claiming that wild fires have become rare done talking yet?

OK fine.

Yes, depending on where you go and what you look at we are having a problem with wild fires in the US and elsewhere (i.e., Australia). Part of this is probably due to weather whiplash. Periods of heavier than usual rain means more fuel grows, periods of dry make the fuel ready to burn, maybe even add some extra windy conditions, and the fires are worse than usual. This leads to landslide conditions being worse later on when the unusual rains occur.

Anyway, Climate Hawks Vote has taken note of this and made a meme, the picture above, that I thought you might want to see and share. Also, click here to see how media coverage in California is changing vis-a-vis wildfire and climate change.

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The funeral services are beginning this week for the 10 volunteer firefighters and the five other individuals who were fatally injured by the horrific explosion at West Fertilizer.  The
yesterday, as we were headed into an informal research group discussion, one of the locals grabbed me and pointed out the window at a small plume of smoke on the mountain above Santa Barbara
I'm not sure about the NUMBER of fires. That might be hard to count. If five small fires emerge and are put out, there are five fires. If five fires emerge, join into one configuration, and wipe out a handful of mountain villages in the Rockies, that's one fire.
âAs fire fighters, we know the risks of answering the call, but it does not lessen our pain when the worst happens,â said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the Int'l Association of Fire Fighters.

Right wing crazy. Pielke disagrees.

By Eric Mcoo (not verified) on 28 Jun 2014 #permalink

Very kind of you to post my messages. Thanks.

By Eric Mcoo (not verified) on 30 Jun 2014 #permalink

Eric: "Scepticism about the temperature record itself. Exposed by Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford and the USA's top statistician Edward Wegeman"

This is nonsense. None of these people are climate scientists, and all all of them have deep commitments to an ideological view of climate. And "top statistician" or not, Wegman is at least as well known as the US's Top Plagiarist.

Your website is filled with naive baloney from the cream of the crop of anti-science loudmouths. "Governments Know Carbon Dioxide Cannot Cause Warming" yes, it's all a giant conspiracy, and even I'm in on it!

Isle of Denial is more like it.

I'm always baffled that someone would believe that the scientific consensus is a nefarious consipiracy, but that the likes of Montford *GWPF) and Wegman (ruled a plagiarist by his own institution) are inspired by only the highest motives. That's hardly being skeptical.

By Mal Adapted (not verified) on 04 Jul 2014 #permalink

Our PM, The Rabbot (Tony Abbott BA Boxing Oxon.) pronounced late last year that the huge bushfires in NSW were not related to global warming, when the firefighters were saying they were much more severe in recent years.

This is the Prime Minister who has said, "Climate change is crap" and takes no opportunity to retract. This is the PM who says we should be building more base load power stations, when traditional large coal fired power stations are being closed due to falling electricity demand. The country that is trying to discourage solar power for homes to protect the big traditional electricity power generators and distributors.

This is the government that has appointed a well known climate change denier as head of a body to set renewable energy targets. The government that is cutting funding for the CSIRO so severely that whole research programs are ending.

This is the country that is so anti renewable energy that US solar companies won't invest here. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-07/renewable-energy-investment-kille…

This is the country that I am embarrassed to call my own.

I like the seventh quote on the page Eric linked to in his #2:

"Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equal four. If that is given, all else follows"

– George Orwell, 1984

We're saying the climate-science equivalent of "two plus two equals four" and waiting for the contrarians to refute that somehow. Judging by the comments they make, one of them should have won a Nobel Prize by now for doing so. It seems to me they've had plenty of time.

By Christopher Winter (not verified) on 13 Jul 2014 #permalink

Incidentally, I just finished reading and reviewing Shattered Consensus, a compendium of work on climate science by 11 authors, edited by Patrick Michaels. Published in 2005, it is the closest thing I've seen to a serious challenge to the climate-science consensus. However, it does not achieve the purpose its title brags about; the consensus remains intact.

Here's my detailed review. I also have a short one on Amazon.

By Christopher Winter (not verified) on 13 Jul 2014 #permalink

Also, that would be nine years old by now! We didn't even know about Arctic Amplification then.

And when the whole north drowns in snowfalls - remember: Wether is not climate!