5 ms·

Unfortunately despite the media coverage, most of these fires have nothing to do with climate change [1], and in fact in europe for example this year we had les

by zpeti 3y ago

Unfortunately despite the media coverage, most of these fires have nothing to do with climate change [1], and in fact in europe for example this year we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years [2]. I'm all for sustainable living, and looking after our planet, but the hysteria that media is riding now is absolutely ridiculous. I suggest following Bjorn Lomborg [3] for more rational coverage of climate issues. [1] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D-21-0754.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D... [2] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 [3] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg

defrost 3y ago
> we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years The nature of wildfire is changing - a massive reduction in open grassland, savannah, managed area fires does nothing to offset the fact that old growth forests and long standanding thick woolands are being burnt to the ground. Part of of climate change is a change in distribution of humidity - rain forests drying ut and burning is no light matter to be dismissed with a vapid "yes, but..." I'm not hysterical,as you so condescendingly put it, I'm pragmatic about the real nature of actual data - comes from decades in global scale exploration geophysics and earth mapping. Your Bjorn Lomborg is just doing the conservative misdirect tango.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Please point me to the data then. How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years?
  - defrost 3y ago
    Sure. First point though, you bought up "but actually .. fires are decreasing". As a STEM educator used to talking to students my first question to you is, why aren't you already across the primary data yourself? Do you not care? Is this no more than a talking point for you like a meaningless afternoon tennis match? So .. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l... “There are really two separate trends,” said Randerson. “Even as the global burned area number has declined because of what is happening in savannas, we are seeing a significant increase in the intensity and reach of fires in the western United States because of climate change.” https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natural-hazards/wildfires https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natur... The number, severity, and overall size of wildfires has increased, FIRMS: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map See also: recent Australian Bushfires, Canadian Bushfires > How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years? I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to understand the difference between 3D volume and 2D area .. correct? That you understand a wide open grassland is different to a dense tall forest in terms of fuel volume?
    - zpeti 3y ago
      The tweet I linked shows european wildfires. Last time I checked, there are no savannas in europe. "I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to" know there are no savannas in europe.
      - veave 3y ago
        You are falling in the trap of thinking that ecologists argue in good faith. They hate you, you are the carbon they want to reduce. Don't engage.
sandgiant 3y ago
Cherry-picking data to support your biases hardly falls under the category of rationalist coverage. Just like the radical environmentalists, Lomborg seems particularly prone to his biases. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated than what fits in a few tweets about wild fires, polar bears and coral reefs.
hgomersall 3y ago
Bjorn Lomborg is great to read if you don't have an honest desire to understand and want to ignore the actual problem and feel better about yourself. Lomborg essential draws heavily on Nordhaus, who, like many economists starts from his point and then finds some maths to justify it. Nordhaus's IPCC contribution is disgraceful and should be utterly disregarded for its unjustified extrapolations and wishful thinking.
tnjm 3y ago
The paper you cite in [1] is interesting and worth reading. However, it doesn't support a claim that fires on Hawaii have nothing to do with climate change (and of course it says nothing whatsoever about fires elsewhere -- Hawaii's weather, and climate, are extraordinarily localized).
lm28469 3y ago
Yes if you do look at individual data points you'll find outliers, that's like the whole damn point people are making... Look at 2022 now, one year ago, on the complete opposite of the spectrum: https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/sites/default/files/images/figure%201.png https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/sites/default/files/... What does it mean ? That it's becoming increasingly unstable. Does it fit the """"narrative"""" ? yes This dude is so obviously just trying to sell his books it's painful, "believe me and you'll be part of the in group of people who _know_ the _truth_". For every single data point he finds that doesn't fit the """"narrative"""" you'll find a hundred that do.
n3rv 3y ago
Nothing to do with record heat and record droughts? dude.. seriously.. Get out of here with this nonsense.
austinjp 3y ago
As a sibling has noted, the paper you cite does not support your claim. In fact, it doesn't even mention wildfires. The authors suggest that existing predictors of Hawaiian precipitation need to be updated so they're more accurate. They note that "dryness has been observed over the islands, indeed the driest such 20-yr period on record" and that this has become particularly unpredictable in the 21st century. In their "suite of atmospheric model simulations" the authors describe "the observed 2010–19 ocean boundary forcings and atmospheric chemical composition" as the "factual" which is contrasted with the "climate of that period absent effects of long-term global warming drivers" as the "counterfactual" (emphasis mine). They test three models, finding that "all three models produce Hawaiian-region drying in response to a zonally uniform ocean warming". Their preferred theory of "atmospheric decadal variability" is "ENSO" -- El Niño Southern Oscillation. They cite [0] which describes "decadal scale changes in the general atmospheric circulation [and] long-term changes in the atmospheric circulation itself." Finally, every author of the paper you cited has published repeatedly about the relationship between global warming and wildfires, e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]. In conclusion, I find your post here to be disingenuous and either made in ignorance at best, or in bad faith at worst. [0] https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.631 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.631 [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC51B0971P/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC51B0971P/abstra... [2] https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/23003 https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/23003 [3] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/103/12/BAMS-D-22-0112.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/103/12/BAMS-... [4] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/53/12/jamc-d-14-0053.1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/53/12/jamc-d...

by zpeti 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

> we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years The nature of wildfire is changing - a massive reduction in open grassland, savannah, managed area fires does nothing to offset the fact that old growth forests and long standanding thick woolands are being burnt to the ground. Part of of climate change is a change in distribution of humidity - rain forests drying ut and burning is no light matter to be dismissed with a vapid "yes, but..." I'm not hysterical,as you so condescendingly put it, I'm pragmatic about the real nature of actual data - comes from decades in global scale exploration geophysics and earth mapping. Your Bjorn Lomborg is just doing the conservative misdirect tango.

zpeti 3y ago
Please point me to the data then. How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years?
- defrost 3y ago
  Sure. First point though, you bought up "but actually .. fires are decreasing". As a STEM educator used to talking to students my first question to you is, why aren't you already across the primary data yourself? Do you not care? Is this no more than a talking point for you like a meaningless afternoon tennis match? So .. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l... “There are really two separate trends,” said Randerson. “Even as the global burned area number has declined because of what is happening in savannas, we are seeing a significant increase in the intensity and reach of fires in the western United States because of climate change.” https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natural-hazards/wildfires https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natur... The number, severity, and overall size of wildfires has increased, FIRMS: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map See also: recent Australian Bushfires, Canadian Bushfires > How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years? I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to understand the difference between 3D volume and 2D area .. correct? That you understand a wide open grassland is different to a dense tall forest in terms of fuel volume?
  - zpeti 3y ago
    The tweet I linked shows european wildfires. Last time I checked, there are no savannas in europe. "I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to" know there are no savannas in europe.
    - veave 3y ago
      You are falling in the trap of thinking that ecologists argue in good faith. They hate you, you are the carbon they want to reduce. Don't engage.

sandgiant 3y ago

Cherry-picking data to support your biases hardly falls under the category of rationalist coverage. Just like the radical environmentalists, Lomborg seems particularly prone to his biases. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated than what fits in a few tweets about wild fires, polar bears and coral reefs.

hgomersall 3y ago

Bjorn Lomborg is great to read if you don't have an honest desire to understand and want to ignore the actual problem and feel better about yourself. Lomborg essential draws heavily on Nordhaus, who, like many economists starts from his point and then finds some maths to justify it. Nordhaus's IPCC contribution is disgraceful and should be utterly disregarded for its unjustified extrapolations and wishful thinking.

tnjm 3y ago

The paper you cite in [1] is interesting and worth reading. However, it doesn't support a claim that fires on Hawaii have nothing to do with climate change (and of course it says nothing whatsoever about fires elsewhere -- Hawaii's weather, and climate, are extraordinarily localized).

lm28469 3y ago

Yes if you do look at individual data points you'll find outliers, that's like the whole damn point people are making... Look at 2022 now, one year ago, on the complete opposite of the spectrum: https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/sites/default/files/images/figure%201.png https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/sites/default/files/... What does it mean ? That it's becoming increasingly unstable. Does it fit the """"narrative"""" ? yes This dude is so obviously just trying to sell his books it's painful, "believe me and you'll be part of the in group of people who _know_ the _truth_". For every single data point he finds that doesn't fit the """"narrative"""" you'll find a hundred that do.

n3rv 3y ago

Nothing to do with record heat and record droughts? dude.. seriously.. Get out of here with this nonsense.

austinjp 3y ago

As a sibling has noted, the paper you cite does not support your claim. In fact, it doesn't even mention wildfires. The authors suggest that existing predictors of Hawaiian precipitation need to be updated so they're more accurate. They note that "dryness has been observed over the islands, indeed the driest such 20-yr period on record" and that this has become particularly unpredictable in the 21st century. In their "suite of atmospheric model simulations" the authors describe "the observed 2010–19 ocean boundary forcings and atmospheric chemical composition" as the "factual" which is contrasted with the "climate of that period absent effects of long-term global warming drivers" as the "counterfactual" (emphasis mine). They test three models, finding that "all three models produce Hawaiian-region drying in response to a zonally uniform ocean warming". Their preferred theory of "atmospheric decadal variability" is "ENSO" -- El Niño Southern Oscillation. They cite [0] which describes "decadal scale changes in the general atmospheric circulation [and] long-term changes in the atmospheric circulation itself." Finally, every author of the paper you cited has published repeatedly about the relationship between global warming and wildfires, e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]. In conclusion, I find your post here to be disingenuous and either made in ignorance at best, or in bad faith at worst. [0] https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.631 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.631 [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC51B0971P/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC51B0971P/abstra... [2] https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/23003 https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/23003 [3] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/103/12/BAMS-D-22-0112.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/103/12/BAMS-... [4] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/53/12/jamc-d-14-0053.1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/53/12/jamc-d...