Drought, high temperatures, high winds, and dry vegetation is a recipe for disaster. But is the result related to climate change?
Some scientists are saying that the disastrous outbreak of wildfires across Southern California are consistent with the predicted effects of climate change. But other experts - and the media that covers them - seem split between California’s natural predilection for burning, and the steadily increasing trends that are making each fire season longer, and more intense.
Today, the LA Times led with the headline, “Global warming not a factor in climate change.” That sounds rather definitive. But the article leads with a question (”Are the massive fires burning across Southern California a product of global warming?”), which is somewhat out of the ordinary for a news report. By the time you approach the body of the article, the reporter is pointing out trends of rising temperatures, persistent droughts, and shifting winds as a direct result of climate change.
It’s a bit of a mixed message. There’s a consensus that there are parallels between what’s happening in Southern California and what the models have predicted, in particular the trend of Southwestern droughts. There are also parallels to Hurricane Katrina, another event that had the media making timid references to climate change.
In the days following Katrina, the climate scientists at the blog RealClimate wrote that it was impossible to blame any one event on global warming, but went on to say:
“The situation is analogous to rolling loaded dice: one could, if one was so inclined, construct a set of dice where sixes occur twice as often as normal. But if you were to roll a six using these dice, you could not blame it specifically on the fact that the dice had been loaded. Half of the sixes would have occurred anyway, even with normal dice. Loading the dice simply doubled the odds.”
In other words, climate change is making these disastrous weather events more likely, and more intense, but does not seal the fate of any one place in any one season.
But still, there seems to be a shift in the way people accustomed to dealing with these sorts of events are dealing with them. Tom Boatner, head of Federal firefighting efforts, told 60 Minutes, “We know what we’re seeing, and we’re dealing with a period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought, that’s different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes.”
I have to agree with Tom Boatner. I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime. I can’t get over being struck by the fact that - 30 years ago - scientists began saying that fossil fuel emission would cause Earth to get warmer, and that, although we weren’t see the effects back then (in the 1970s), we would probably begin seeing them around the turn of the century.
And now the new century is here, and half a million people are being evacuated due to California wildfires.
I believe these sorts of events - droughts, fires, floods - will become more common as this century progresses, and Earth continues to warm.
Deborah
Global Warming has also been named as the culprit that forces Paris Hilton & Friends to go “pantyless” so how does Global Warming make an Arsonist do their thing!
a p garcia, I’m guessing that the first statement is not purely scientific.
Also, in the interest of being accurate, it’s been discovered that the California arsonists were copying the massive fires that had already started (according to the NYTimes). A big factor in spreading the wildfires is that the Santa Ana winds have been stronger, and lasted longer, than usual, and that’s been attributed to changes in climate.
In a word, no. The Tillamook burns, the massive fires in Minnesota and Wisconsin of the 1800’s occurred before the “climate change” started. The wildfires in CA are a result of failure to manage the forest and grasslands and of building in the middle of them.
Nature cleases by fire. Old growth must be removed for the advent of the new. We just are stupid enough to build in the middle of it. Also, we know how to manage forests and grasslands. One of the management techniques is to have small controlled burns and to harvest mature trees and grasses. If we do not use a resourse, we will lose it.
Fires aren’t bad and they aren’t good. They are.
By the way, the Santa Anna winds have been happening as long as humans in the area can remember. There are years that are more severe than others. Always has been, always will be.
Or maybe it’s terrorists:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/fox-news-al-qaeda-is-causing-the-ca-wildires