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I totally agree wildfires are getting worse because of climate change. But... I was asked about the far larger and far worse fires Australia had in 1974-1975,

I totally agree wildfires are getting worse because of climate change. But... I was asked about the far larger and far worse fires Australia had in 1974-1975, and why those were related just to mismanagement and these are related to climate change. I didn't have an answer, does anyone?

specialist 7y ago
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: Because of the trend towards increased frequency. "100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  It is likely that 100 year events, calculated on the basis of historical data are overly optimistic. That is, these events will occur with higher frequency. However, "every year"? The only way to make that a correct statement is to say that there is at least one 100 year event (fire flood earthquake viral outbreak, etc.) happening in each year globally. But that has essentially always been true. "100 year event" really only has any meaning when talking about a specific event: e.g., category V hurricane landing within 50 miles of Houston.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > Someone please correct me if I'm wrong >"100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year. Alright, that is incorrect. Perhaps you're living in age of better reporting and global information exchange?
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
1. It is not as if global warming wasn't happening in 1974-75. It is just that the signal was MUCH weaker, the amount of historical and contemporary data was MUCH less, our confidence in climate modeling was much lower, and processing power was much less for actually running our models. To say that 1974-75 was not related to climate change at all is likely wrong. But certainly, the amount of human-induced global warming was significantly less too, so it is likely that 74-75 had other larger underlying reasons.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Right! So things in the 1970s were climate crisis too, we just didn't know about it. Good point. Anywhere I could look up and see what the global degree increase was in the 1970s? I imagine this might be hard to find because they thought largely that the climate was cooling then, no? edit: why downvotes? I'm agreeing!
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    Just look at any IPCC report, it probably is a good starting point. That is all very well known to the extent allowed by science at the time. The greenhouse effect was well known. Exxon essentially predicted the level of warming we've seen in the late 70s/early 80s in internal reports. Nobody really think the climate was cooling. There was one magazine cover, once, that has been grossly blown out of proportion.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Scientists and science-fiction has been dealing with/talking about climate crisis since the 50s/60s. A lot of the early stuff is tied in with some wrong (since disproven) Malthusian beliefs, but a since of post-fossil fuel-related climate change is an undercurrent through a lot of sci-fi. Even just looking at well known pop culture artifacts, climate crisis is a component of the films Logan's Run and Soylent Green in the 70s. One of my favorite graphs on the subject remains xkcd's: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ You can't read an exact "degree increase" around the 70s on that chart, but you can clearly see the seventies is in a notable slope/gradient as is everything post-world wars.
    - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
      Agreed. I like that chart too. But doesn't it pretty much show that from 1800 to 1920 that the damage was already done? It was steady for 3000+ years then jumped drastically over a 120 year span. edit: Obviously not "damage is done" let's not care, but rather, how little emissions started the slope change.
ratboy666 7y ago
I would wonder why. Why would wildfires get worse because of climate change? Wildfires need an accumulation of fuel. Climate change could produce the fuel, but that would be a process of decades. Indeed, bad fires in 1975 -- 45 years later there is enough fuel. Which would mean that the mechanism would be: climate change -> growth of fuel -> burn.
nfg 7y ago
It’s not a direct answer to your question and I don’t have a reference to hand but I found it interesting. I read that the 74-75 fires were a fairly different situation - the year before there was anomalously high rainfall which lead to a large amount of unsupportable grass growth. The grass grew over a huge but primarily uninhabited area, died, and dried out. When it caught fire the next year it was allowed to burn uncontrolled. So it was primarily grass being allowed to burn in remote areas versus the current situation which involves more forest and is being actively fought.

specialist 7y ago

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: Because of the trend towards increased frequency. "100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
It is likely that 100 year events, calculated on the basis of historical data are overly optimistic. That is, these events will occur with higher frequency. However, "every year"? The only way to make that a correct statement is to say that there is at least one 100 year event (fire flood earthquake viral outbreak, etc.) happening in each year globally. But that has essentially always been true. "100 year event" really only has any meaning when talking about a specific event: e.g., category V hurricane landing within 50 miles of Houston.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong >"100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year. Alright, that is incorrect. Perhaps you're living in age of better reporting and global information exchange?

hcknwscommenter 7y ago

1. It is not as if global warming wasn't happening in 1974-75. It is just that the signal was MUCH weaker, the amount of historical and contemporary data was MUCH less, our confidence in climate modeling was much lower, and processing power was much less for actually running our models. To say that 1974-75 was not related to climate change at all is likely wrong. But certainly, the amount of human-induced global warming was significantly less too, so it is likely that 74-75 had other larger underlying reasons.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Right! So things in the 1970s were climate crisis too, we just didn't know about it. Good point. Anywhere I could look up and see what the global degree increase was in the 1970s? I imagine this might be hard to find because they thought largely that the climate was cooling then, no? edit: why downvotes? I'm agreeing!
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Just look at any IPCC report, it probably is a good starting point. That is all very well known to the extent allowed by science at the time. The greenhouse effect was well known. Exxon essentially predicted the level of warming we've seen in the late 70s/early 80s in internal reports. Nobody really think the climate was cooling. There was one magazine cover, once, that has been grossly blown out of proportion.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Scientists and science-fiction has been dealing with/talking about climate crisis since the 50s/60s. A lot of the early stuff is tied in with some wrong (since disproven) Malthusian beliefs, but a since of post-fossil fuel-related climate change is an undercurrent through a lot of sci-fi. Even just looking at well known pop culture artifacts, climate crisis is a component of the films Logan's Run and Soylent Green in the 70s. One of my favorite graphs on the subject remains xkcd's: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ You can't read an exact "degree increase" around the 70s on that chart, but you can clearly see the seventies is in a notable slope/gradient as is everything post-world wars.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Agreed. I like that chart too. But doesn't it pretty much show that from 1800 to 1920 that the damage was already done? It was steady for 3000+ years then jumped drastically over a 120 year span. edit: Obviously not "damage is done" let's not care, but rather, how little emissions started the slope change.

ratboy666 7y ago

I would wonder why. Why would wildfires get worse because of climate change? Wildfires need an accumulation of fuel. Climate change could produce the fuel, but that would be a process of decades. Indeed, bad fires in 1975 -- 45 years later there is enough fuel. Which would mean that the mechanism would be: climate change -> growth of fuel -> burn.

nfg 7y ago

It’s not a direct answer to your question and I don’t have a reference to hand but I found it interesting. I read that the 74-75 fires were a fairly different situation - the year before there was anomalously high rainfall which lead to a large amount of unsupportable grass growth. The grass grew over a huge but primarily uninhabited area, died, and dried out. When it caught fire the next year it was allowed to burn uncontrolled. So it was primarily grass being allowed to burn in remote areas versus the current situation which involves more forest and is being actively fought.