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> The Camp fire happened because we received precisely zero inches of precipitation from the beginning of April, to the end of November this year It rained in

> The Camp fire happened because we received precisely zero inches of precipitation from the beginning of April, to the end of November this year It rained in May and October. It is not helpful to your argument that you are expressing your best honest guesses as if they were canonical fact. In my opinion, there were a number of direct causes: 1. Drought killed a lot of plants adding to the amount of dry fuel 2. A wet winter grew a lot of new plants which, when dried out, added to the fuel 3. Rain sufficient to eliminate fire risk came unusually late in the year. Normally arrives in the range of 2 to 6 weeks earlier. So it was unusual, but the variation is pretty large in the first place. 4. We had a high-wind event sufficient to turn a fire which would not be national news into national news. 5. PG&E negligence. To make the case that this fire is caused by climate change, you need to link one or more of the direct causes I've listed to climate change. In my opinion, while climate change is a possible cause, California climate has so much variation it is hard to pin these events to it at this time.

mschuster91 8y ago
> To make the case that this fire is caused by climate change, you need to link one or more of the direct causes I've listed to climate change All four points you list are a direct consequence of climate change (e.g. due to jetstream blockade: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141647.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141647.h...). Climate change is real and it's dangerous. You also missed one point: the lack of both controlled burns and huge fire barriers between forest sections (i.e. barren land), both of which led the fire to explode.
- cjensen 8y ago
  California has controlled burns. Fire barriers and escape routes do need to be improved, but not sure that mattered given the wind in this particular incident. Also thanks, I liked that article describing blocking, but it didn't tie the phenomena to climate change. In fact, it says that blocking is a long-known thing. Do you know of any research that does tie it?
aphextron 8y ago
>It rained in May and October. It is not helpful to your argument that you are expressing your best honest guesses as if they were canonical fact. I made the statement to explicitly point out hard data that most might think were hyperbolic. This is far from a guess. It did not rain one drop in NorCal from the beginning of April to the end of October 2018 [0]. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let me know. >3. Rain sufficient to eliminate fire risk came unusually late in the year. Normally arrives in the range of 2 to 6 weeks earlier. So it was unusual, but the variation is pretty large in the first place. Yes, this was my entire point. The rain came a month late this year, which is why the fires got out of hand. >To make the case that this fire is caused by climate change, you need to link one or more of the direct causes I've listed to climate change. In my opinion, while climate change is a possible cause, California climate has so much variation it is hard to pin these events to it at this time. I wouldn't have made the assertion without direct causality. Why did the rain come late? There was simply no energy left in the Pacific after a record setting hurricane season. It took a month of no hurricanes in the eastern pacific for sea surface temperatures to get back to where they can produce consistent moisture over the west coast. Take a look at this series of images. They show a snapshot of the SST anomaly data for September in the western hemisphere from 2014 to 2018. https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomw.9.4.2014.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomw.9.4.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomw.9.3.2015.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomw.9.3.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomw.9.5.2016.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomw.9.5.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.9.4.2017.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.9.4.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomw.9.6.2018.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomw.9.6.20... See how much more energy is out there in 2014-15 (years with really wet summers/falls) vs. the cooling that becomes really apparent by 2018? It's as if the oceans have reached a total carrying capacity for energy and passed a tipping point where these massive storms get whipped up and burn off all their energy quickly, rather than having a slowly dripping moisture source over the west coast as we always have had. You can see here that we are currently sitting at ~18% of normal precipitation for the year in Northern California [1]. https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/napa/california/united-states/usca2061/2018/1 https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/napa/california/united... [0] https://www.ggweather.com/seasonal_rain.htm https://www.ggweather.com/seasonal_rain.htm [1]

mschuster91 8y ago

> To make the case that this fire is caused by climate change, you need to link one or more of the direct causes I've listed to climate change All four points you list are a direct consequence of climate change (e.g. due to jetstream blockade: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141647.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141647.h...). Climate change is real and it's dangerous. You also missed one point: the lack of both controlled burns and huge fire barriers between forest sections (i.e. barren land), both of which led the fire to explode.

cjensen 8y ago
California has controlled burns. Fire barriers and escape routes do need to be improved, but not sure that mattered given the wind in this particular incident. Also thanks, I liked that article describing blocking, but it didn't tie the phenomena to climate change. In fact, it says that blocking is a long-known thing. Do you know of any research that does tie it?

aphextron 8y ago

>It rained in May and October. It is not helpful to your argument that you are expressing your best honest guesses as if they were canonical fact. I made the statement to explicitly point out hard data that most might think were hyperbolic. This is far from a guess. It did not rain one drop in NorCal from the beginning of April to the end of October 2018 [0]. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let me know. >3. Rain sufficient to eliminate fire risk came unusually late in the year. Normally arrives in the range of 2 to 6 weeks earlier. So it was unusual, but the variation is pretty large in the first place. Yes, this was my entire point. The rain came a month late this year, which is why the fires got out of hand. >To make the case that this fire is caused by climate change, you need to link one or more of the direct causes I've listed to climate change. In my opinion, while climate change is a possible cause, California climate has so much variation it is hard to pin these events to it at this time. I wouldn't have made the assertion without direct causality. Why did the rain come late? There was simply no energy left in the Pacific after a record setting hurricane season. It took a month of no hurricanes in the eastern pacific for sea surface temperatures to get back to where they can produce consistent moisture over the west coast. Take a look at this series of images. They show a snapshot of the SST anomaly data for September in the western hemisphere from 2014 to 2018. https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomw.9.4.2014.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomw.9.4.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomw.9.3.2015.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomw.9.3.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomw.9.5.2016.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomw.9.5.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.9.4.2017.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.9.4.20... https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomw.9.6.2018.gif https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomw.9.6.20... See how much more energy is out there in 2014-15 (years with really wet summers/falls) vs. the cooling that becomes really apparent by 2018? It's as if the oceans have reached a total carrying capacity for energy and passed a tipping point where these massive storms get whipped up and burn off all their energy quickly, rather than having a slowly dripping moisture source over the west coast as we always have had. You can see here that we are currently sitting at ~18% of normal precipitation for the year in Northern California [1]. https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/napa/california/united-states/usca2061/2018/1 https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/napa/california/united... [0] https://www.ggweather.com/seasonal_rain.htm https://www.ggweather.com/seasonal_rain.htm [1]