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Earth

California Wildfires Are Five Times Bigger Than They Used To Be (bloomberg.com) 105

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The extent of area burned in California's summer wildfires increased about fivefold from 1971 to 2021, and climate change was a major reason why, according to a new analysis. Scientists estimate the area burned in an average summer may jump as much as 50% by 2050. From a report: Days after wildfire smoke from Canada turned skies orange along the US Eastern Seaboard, the study is further confirmation of past research showing that higher temperatures and drier conditions in many parts of the world make wildfires more likely. Wildfires worsened by greenhouse gases emitted by human activities tore through Australia in 2019 and 2020 and Siberia in 2020. The peer-reviewed research, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that wildfires in California's northern and central forests scorch the most area when temperatures are high and less area when it's cooler.

Marco Turco, a climate researcher at the University of Murcia in Spain, and colleagues designed the study to try to identify how much of the increase in the burned area of California fires was due to climate change, and how much to natural variability. They conducted a statistical analysis of temperature and forest-fire data for California summers in the period 1971 to 2021. They then drew on modeling that shows how the last several decades might have evolved without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The result: Burned area grew 172% more than it would have without climate change. Manmade effects began to overwhelm what would be expected without greenhouse gas pollution after 2001, the researchers concluded.
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California Wildfires Are Five Times Bigger Than They Used To Be More

California Wildfires Are Five Times Bigger Than They Used To Be

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  • Pre-burn it in the winter (Score:3)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @02:46PM (#63599258) Journal

    That should reduce forest fire smoke in the summer :)

    • Send in all those unemployed bums with rakes to clear out the leaf litter, just like in Finland. Yeah, that'll work. Guaranteed!

      • No leaf litter from Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Pine needles aren't the hazard. They just smolder if they are on fire.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Lord Rust ( 8424069 )
        Just in case someone actually thinks we have anyone using "rakes to clear out the leaf litter" in forests here in Finland .... we don't. Never heard of it. It's one more thing Trump lied about just because no-one can check these things, right? https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]

        • Don't worry, my friend. If there was a really good "Sarcasm" emoticon, I'd have used it here.

          Cheers.

        • In context, a rake is an attachment to a tractor, bulldozer, scraper, etc. (not the home garden tool). They used to be in common use in forest management to create firebreaks (preferably before fires happened). Also, having lived in the region, for part of the time period referenced (with friends and relatives still there), there are also lots of wild grasslands that used to be better managed with firebreaks and service roads, and also with a lot more livestock grazing (there used to be more sheep and goat

  • And stay out of a fire's way?

  • I can prove them wrong. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @02:54PM (#63599298)

    I'll just take a branch off an unburned tree, march it into the chamber, hold it up and declare wildfires to be a hoax.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep. Something like that. I am sure a lot of morons would cheer you on and deeply _believe_ you to be right. Because belief changes the world. Right? Right?

      • I mean, the right wing bubble has been fined at least $1.7 Billion for lying to its viewers (so far) ... and people in the bubble still believe them. And those people vote. So ... yes?
    • If you've ever seen videos of California city council meetings where members of the public are permitted to participate I can assure you that you wouldn't even earn a podium finish for craziest person in the room. You wouldn't be in bad company though so have a pamphlet or newsletter handy because people will ask for a copy.

  • Obviously that must be _all_ continued forest mismanagement which is getting worse! Cannot have anything to do with climate change because that obviously does not exist, or if it exists it must be non human-made or of it is human-made somebody else is responsible! China! It must be China! Hence no need for us to change anything and all is well.

    Or something like that. Standing on the accelerator while driving towards a cliff and thinking closing your eyes or blaming somebody else will make if all fine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Obviously that must be _all_ continued forest mismanagement which is getting worse! Cannot have anything to do with climate change because that obviously does not exist, or if it exists it must be non human-made or of it is human-made somebody else is responsible! China! It must be China! Hence no need for us to change anything and all is well.

      The solution is obvious: we need more rakes [google.com].

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 )

      The ability to deny AGW is rapidly decaying. Here in Canada, wild fire season is now happening in May, with several months of hot, dry temperatures ahead. If we're not at the point of late April early May to October, we're getting pretty damned close to six month fire seasons in some parts of Canada.

      You can blame forest management all you want, but up here in Canada we're talking about 362 million hectares of forest. There aren't enough rakes or enough people to rake to ever manage all those forests. And wi

      • Are you positive someone didn't set those fires? Seems Canada has a few enemies these days.

        • I don't know. Maybe aliens from Alpha Centauri did it.

          Does it fucking matter? If climate change is making periods of low precipitation and higher temperatures more prevalent, does it matter whether it's an idiot tossing out a cigarette butt, a lightning struck or evil foreign saboteurs lighting fires? This is literally like missing the (burning) forest for the trees.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          You cannot actually prevent forest fires reliably if the forst can burn. If the conditions are right, the sun and a drop of water may do it. Essentially every forest that can burn well will do it sooner or later. There is a reason trees all have long-optimized strategies to survive forest fires and these are far older than the human capability to set them on fire.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Half the fires are caused by lightning, and those are the fires that grow and burn large amounts of forest. Arsonists, and the more common stupid, results in fires that are accessible and easy to put out.

  • Preventative fire burn used to be a thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BigFire ( 13822 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @03:11PM (#63599384)

    Until it isn't. And we're surprised that the actual wild fire is far larger?

    • Correct, You can have a lot of small fires each year, or a big one each decade or so. The small fire removes leaves and scrub, but the big trees remain largely untouched. The big fires get the big trees burning and destroys all the potential lumber.

    • Re:Preventative fire burn used to be a thing (Score:5, Informative)

      by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @03:49PM (#63599506)

      Yes, it "used to be a thing" for thousands of years when native people did it. It was outlawed by the government in 1850. In 1968, after realizing that no new giant sequoias had grown in California’s unburned forests, the National Park Service changed its prescribed fire policy. In 1978, so did the Forest Service. 125,000 acres of wildlands are intentionally burned each year in California. It should be more, but NIMBY homeowners and lumber industry lobbyists fight against it.

      Of course, this is all old news and has absolutely nothing to do with recent increases in wildfires which are due to climate change, but anything to distract people from what's really going on right?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        How can you claim this has nothing to do with the increase in wildfires, when the wildfires are larger, and hotter, as time goes on?

        How long do you think deadfall trees sit on the forest floor in CA before they rot to a non-combustable state, exactly? From what I've seen, due to the humidity of the region, it's much more than 50 years for a larger tree.

        Underbrush grows over time. With burning only 125,000 acres a year, the amount of undergrowth is going to grow... every year, on average. Burning 125,000 acr

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          You don't get much undergrowth in a mature forest, which I assume you are talking about if deadfall's are lasting 50+ years. Or perhaps like here, somewhat north, those deadfall's are Western Cedars, which don't burn worth a fuck even if dry, and they aren't often dry, though that is changing.

    • Re:Preventative fire burn used to be a thing (Score:4, Informative)

      by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:29PM (#63599652)

      When I started looking at the comment, I knew people would blame it on "not enough preventive fire". I also knew, that like most good slashdotters, most people commenting wouldn't have bothered to read the actual scientific paper.

      If they had, they would have seen that the study does in fact include "Nonclimatic factors that have been implicated in changing wildfire characteristics include land management that has facilitated fuel buildup which favors increased burn severity as well as both increased susceptibility of California’s aging power grid to extreme weather and increased development in fire-prone areas that changes ignition patterns and fire management".

      If you are interested in the maths, they do a pretty good job at explaining why even when compensating for those changes, the link to climate-change is obvious. Especially now that the effects are more and more visible, and those effects will be even more potent and visible in the next decades. This is actually what this study is showing: previous studies (from 20-30 years ago) had a hard time finding models that would link wildfire frequency/severity to climate change, because it was in the "margin of error". Not anymore.

      In case people have forgotten this simple fact: CO2 is an oxyde, and as such is very stable in the atmosphere. This means that even if we stopped emitting any CO2 now, the next 20 years are basically written. This is like being in a car, and the moment you apply pressure on the brake, and the moment you start decelerating is 20 years. However, the wall(s) are still in front of you. On the bright side, if you have kids or care at all about future generations, this still means it is important to reduce those CO2 emissions now so that the rollercoaster of climate-related effects can start slowing down. In 20 years.

      Time to grab the popcorn.

      • Re:Preventative fire burn used to be a thing (Score:4, Insightful)

        by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:39PM (#63599696)

        Additional quote for the actual paper (you should really read it before commenting):

        To further evaluate potential nonstationarity in the climate-fire relationship that can occur due to exogenous determinants, we demonstrated that models built using various subsets of the data, or considering detrended fire and climate data, return statistically indistinguishable regression parameters suggesting a limited influence of nonclimatic factors in modulating climate-fire relationships during the study period.

      • it is important to reduce those CO2 emissions now so that the rollercoaster of climate-related effects can start slowing down. In 20 years

        We(all the people not just burger people) will reduce co2 emissions when we will start to run out of oil (and it's happening soon) not because we care about others. And it will be very painful for the middle and lower class.

    • because the season when it's safe to do those burns keeps getting shorter, on account of all the climate change.

      You need to do preventative burns during the wet season or you just start a big 'ole Forest Fire. To be fair there is probably more that could've been done... on the Federal Land. For some reason it's been hard to get funding for preventative action [npr.org]
    • California outlaws fire breaks, and forest management. The federal government if prohibited from going on federal land to manage the fire until AFTER the forest is burning down. All the forestry budget gets siphoned over to the aviation division to pay contractors to dump water / retardant. This is BIG money, and things are this way because of the lobbyists and the people who go along with it for political reasons. The fires are started by lightning and arson. The forests where always managed by the local

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      It depends on the ecosystem. Some forests just naturally regularly burn, at that Jack Pine cones need fire to open and other types of trees have evolved in various ways survive fire.
      A lot of places, those fires also mean no forest, it is how grasslands hang around.
      Where I am, in the rain forest, fires are not normal, at least in the low lands. The trees are of types that are shade tolerant, the opposite of trees evolved for fire. And now they are dying from heat stress. My well is already dry, which used to

  • Wildfire Burn Policies? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laie_techie ( 883464 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @03:34PM (#63599478)

    My dad was an ecologist and was called as an expert witness in multiple cases. In 1971, the US Forest Service adopted a 10-acre control plan for 90% of all fires. By keeping the fires so small, it led to a buildup of fuel, making future fires harder to control. In 1983, fire management policy (used to be fire control policy) expanded to allow the federal agencies to choose how to manage the fire (contain, confine, or control). Under current policy, only 2% of wildfires in USFS jurisdiction required large-scale suppression efforts. The policy is to "suppress wildfires at minimum cost consistent with values at risk while minimizing the impacts from suppression activities” (NPS 1990b). Since the USFS and other agencies are intervening less frequently, naturally more acres burn.

    • The study accounted for all of that.
      "To further evaluate potential nonstationarity in the climate-fire relationship that can occur due to exogenous determinants, we demonstrated that models built using various subsets of the data, or considering detrended fire and climate data, return statistically indistinguishable regression parameters suggesting a limited influence of nonclimatic factors in modulating climate-fire relationships during the study period."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

      If you go back to any year on record before 1960, wildfire-consumed acreage in the U.S. was 10 to 20 times larger than it is even at today's worst. Also, there were massive fires in the eastern forests, not just in the dry west. (One year almost the entire state of Wisconsin burned.)

      Yep, we've been thorough in our suppression efforts, and now here it comes back to haunt us.

  • Consider me skeptical of these very broad and chicken-little claims. Weather patterns have not changed that much since 1971. Temperatures have not changed that much since 1971. "Climate" has not changed that much.

    So something else has to be a factor.

    How has land management funding changed in that timeframe? How has land management and underbrush management changed since 1971?

    From where I sit (in a different part of the country, with a dry climate and forests which do not burn as readily or as deadly as they

    • what has changed since 1971 (particularly in CA) is the amount of housing/structures in and around forests. a fire that might have been left to burn itself out back then would now threaten a few mcmansions, so it must be put out immediately.

      also, when land is clear-cut, saplings are replanted -- but heaps and gobs of other random brush takes over for a few decades (until the forest canopy develops enough to block out light, choking out the understory). but it's this brush that builds up and creates the tin

    • Weather patterns have not changed that much since 1971. Temperatures have not changed that much since 1971. "Climate" has not changed that much.

      Why do you think that?

      The Western Megadrought [scientificamerican.com] is something very specific, very measurable, and very obviously a contributor to forest fires:

      The searing "megadrought" that has gripped the southwest U.S. for more than two decades is the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years. The region hasn't seen a more severe drought since the start of the scientific rec

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        The information you posted indicates the drought is cyclical in the region and makes an unsupported claim that climate change itself is making things worse than ever before... it may be worse, but there's no evidence that it's caused by "climate change".

        The graph going back to 800 looks suspiciously like historic sun output levels, but may be unrelated. I seem to recall there being drought in Europe in the 1600s as well at roughly the same timeframe.

        The second link also contradicts the first pretty blatantl

    • Consider me skeptical of these very broad and chicken-little claims. Weather patterns have not changed that much since 1971. Temperatures have not changed that much since 1971. "Climate" has not changed that much.

      Ah, an actual scientist at work I see. Or... Wait, are you just jumping to conclusions without any source, apart from your personal beliefs, and think those are superior to any statistical data that shows otherwise?

      Because I know you need something simple to read (seeing how you didn't even bother to look at the scientific paper, otherwise you would have seen that land management changes were taken into account), here it is: https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
      Please note that the comic is a few years old already, and th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        Curiously, CA does land management differently than states like WA and SD, and those states have seen a regression in fires during the same drought periods. Interesting...

        • If you are serious about having a discussion, please include sources. Otherwise, your claims are nothing more than wishful thinking.

          For instance, the simplest of google search shows that you assertion about WA is just false [wikipedia.org] (just look at past year data to get a sense of increase; even though for it to be receivable a statistical analysis would be needed/better).

          But we get it. You don't like CA. This is all their fault. Climate change doesn't exist, and has no impact on wildfires. What were those scientists

    • You might want to check the end of this handy graphic. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Sounds familiar.

      Old farmers in my home town: "it just don't get cold like it used to."

      Also old farmers in my home town: "this global warming shit is a liberal conspiracy!"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        People have a very short memory.

        https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-coldest-february-in-more-than-30-years

        Guess what? Weather patterns shift over time. This is a known symptom of much bigger factors than AGW. Things like volcanoes which literally blot the sun for periods of time. The large glowing orb that transgresses our sky on the daily. Things like that.

        • On the same note, I was quite cold last night, between 3am and 4am. Surely, that's a sign global warming is a hoax.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Yes, we're just coming out of a cool period called La Nina, which lasted 3 years and had record high temperatures, now we're into a hotter period.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          If only there were a better way than telling stories about selective events.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Actually things have changed. Seems in some areas more then others with, generally, the further north you are, the more the weather has changed.
      I'm in BC, the other year temperatures hit a one in ten thousand year high of 49C, locally about 43C, where 30C is fucking hot, the springs have been coming earlier and earlier, and ending quicker. The snow is almost all gone already and has been gone for weeks, which causes a burst of undergrowth (fuel) that never used to happen, with that undergrowth already start

  • A 5-fold increase over 50 years averages to a 38% increase every 10 years. If we are going to have only a 50% increase in the next 27 years, the rate of increase is less than half of that of the past. It's still increasing, but much slower than before. Which is, kinda, good news.

  • Propoganda (Score:1, Informative)

    by labnet ( 457441 )

    Increased housing, putting fires out instead of letting them burn, no winter control burns,
    But of course, we have a narrative to propagate to get more funding for our next research grant.

    • The study accounted for all of that. It turns out none of that stuff has mattered much in the past.
      "To further evaluate potential nonstationarity in the climate-fire relationship that can occur due to exogenous determinants, we demonstrated that models built using various subsets of the data, or considering detrended fire and climate data, return statistically indistinguishable regression parameters suggesting a limited influence of nonclimatic factors in modulating climate-fire relationships during the stu

  • In the same period, California's population more or less doubled. That includes a much larger number of assholes starting fires, and the entitled putting houses in forests, or right next to them, not to mention idiot housing codes that allow only a 15 foot or less separation between houses, allowing firestorms to destroy whole neighborhoods.

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