Is Climate Change Affecting Bushfires? 397
TapeCutter writes "After the devastating firestorm in Australia, there has been a lot of speculation in the press about the role of climate change. For the 'pro' argument the BBC article points to research by the CSIRO. For the 'con' argument they quote David Packham of Monash university, who is not alone in thinking '...excluding prescribed burning and fuel management has led to the highest fuel concentrations we have ever had...' However, the DSE's 2008 annual report states; '[The DSE] achieved a planned burning program of more than 156,000 hectares, the best result for more than a decade. The planned burning of forest undergrowth is by far the most powerful management tool available...' I drove through Kilmore on the evening of the firestorm, and in my 50 years of living with fire I have never seen a smoke plume anything like it. It was reported to be 15 km high and creating its own lightning. There were also reports of car windscreens and engine blocks melting. So what was it that made such an unusual firestorm possible, and will it happen again?"
Oh... (Score:2, Funny)
It burns! It burns!
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your post ignores:
1. Science
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Science is a human endeavor and subject to limitations of humans. There is one thing that has and will continue to often trump and cause the revising of science:
reality
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you're deluded, most of the results of modern physics are in fact statistical. Every new particle "found" in the last few decades was in fact just a statistical clustering of results that conformed within statistical margin to model being tested. And our physics most certainly does NOT describe all that is known. For example, we don't have a gravity model that can be verified. We don't know if the Standard Model will hold at higher energies. We don't know how many dimensions the universe has. We don't
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
We wait until its too late to act.
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If climate change can literally destroy the planet, shouldn't we understand it before we act?
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Actually, with the population of the earth, going back to the stone age would be catastrophic. People would build wood fires for heat, light, and cooking. That would require mass deforestation, and the burning fires would release more pollutants than we are now.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was working under the assumption that the GP was indicating that we were suggested to step back into the stone age. That would be the entire population of earth, without modern technology to assist us. Really, I think the farthest back we would go would be to agrarian society, but that would have significant drawbacks.
Say something cataclysmic happened tonight, and in the morning there was no power grid, no city water, no supply chains for food, fuel, etc. I'll focus on only the United States, because I am more familiar with it, and finding numbers relating to it.
According to the 2000 US census [dot.gov], just about 226 million people lived in 3,629 population centers that could be considered "Urban". That's just over 79% of the US population.
Assuming these people had exactly what they started out with before they went to bed, they typically would have 0 to 14 days of food supply on hand, and assuming the use of any water supplies available (i.e., toilet tank water, bottled water, etc), they may have a 3 to 4 day supply of water. Right now, if there is sufficient snow on the ground, some people may be smart and gather all the fresh fallen snow that they can. Virtually no one has any provisions for collecting rain water for drinking or cooking use.
In up to 11 days, people will begin dying of dehydration. In up to 28 days, mass starvation would take effect. Sometime between day 1 and day 10, people will begin using force to horde supplies from weaker people.
Some people will realize the futility of remaining in an urban area, and attempt to leave. In a best case scenario, starting with a fully fueled vehicle, and ideal cruising conditions, passenger vehicles can travel 400 miles. That's a best case. In reality, it won't be just one person saying "we have to get out of here", it will be hundreds of thousands. One accident, vehicle running out of fuel, or mechanical failure, and all vehicles behind them will come to a stop.
The 21% living in "Rural" areas may have a better chance. If (IF) they are lucky, they have a fresh water supply that does not depend on electricity. Most rural homes I've seen are supplied with water from electric pumps. If they are lucky, they have a good on-hand food supply. If they are lucky, they already have a food crop that can be harvested on a regular basis.
In reality, the numbers dwindle. Less than 1% of the 79% of the urbanites will be lucky enough to get to somewhere survivable, but they won't be alone. Less than 25% of the 21% rural dwellers will have the necessities on hand for continued survival without our modern infrastructures. i.e., how do you plow a field without a tractor (no fuel). How do you trade bare essentials with your neighbors who you can't reach without a car (no fuel).
But, if the 285 million people in the United States did manage to disperse from the urban centers, to areas that could sustain them temporary for food, water, and shelter, and they managed to have or improvise hand tools to cut down trees, make fire for warmth and cooking, it would be absolutely disastrous for the environment.
This is an easy game to play. Go into your garage and shut off the main breaker (or pull the main fuse in older homes). Shut off the water and gas mains. Take all the money out of your wallet, and your credit cards, and stick them in an envelope somewhere safe that you won't touch them. Now, survive for 6 months.
In reality, if we stepped back to the "stone age" tonight, only small pockets of humanity would survive, and they would be the rural dwellers who live in fresh water rivers, have farms, and can live off the land. Everyone else will die.
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I don't think stone age people can clearcut forests....
Why not? The more common way would be burning the forest, but 6 billion people with stone axes could get rid of most forests rather quickly.
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Of course, there are other variables, such as supplies in urban areas that would be looted. Also barring some extreme act, we would be unlikely to have no governance (e.g. in the event of a catastrophic final economic collapse). Here in Ireland for example, it is likely that electricity could be provided for maybe an hour a day just using native resources and the handful of older hydro/peat power plants we have (of course, here the electricity company is semi-state owned/run, other places may not have that
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Is any of this based on fact or research or is it simply just guesswork?
One thing that stood out to me was this:
"Less than 25% of the 21% rural dwellers will have the necessities on hand for continued survival without our modern infrastructures. i.e., how do you plow a field without a tractor (no fuel)."
How do you think fields were plowed and trade carried out before we'd invented motor vehicles?
We only need tractors because we're farming to provide food for millions, most of which are those urbanites. If y
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I'm sorry but this is ridiculous.
You don't need to understand exactly how a toilet works to know to shut off the water if it overflows.
Similarly, it doesn't take any extreme level of understanding to recognize the benefits in limiting our emissions.
Or are you trying to make the case that the byproducts of fossil fuels are actually HELPING our environment?
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The point is we don't know. If our survival depends on a strict range of natural conditions, then removing too much CO2 from the environment could spell disaster as well.
Removing CO2 from the environment isn't a concern. That won't happen for a long long time.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are different ways of acting.
Stopping dumping tons of crap into the atmosphere is unlikely to make things worse. Now trying to fix things by releasing some other chemical to try to balance the problem could backfire.
The first is like "Shouldn't we understand the complete ecosystem of the lake before we stop using it as a garbage dump?". It's generally unnecessary to wait to have a 100% complete understanding. Maybe the fish are dying for some other reason, but stopping dumping junk is unlikely to make things get any worse.
The second is more like "The lake seems too acid, maybe we should compensate by dumping several tons of base to neutralize". Now this kind of solution will require a complete understanding, lest it turns out that wasn't the problem, and things become even worse than before.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Climate hange cannot destroy the planet, the life on it, or even the human race. It can - and very likely will - simply make things extremely uncomfortable (= billions die) for us, as growth zones of various plants change and weather patterns become chaotic for the duration of the change.
However, those who most profit from not cutting fossil fuel consumption will be able to use those profits to shield themselves from the consequences, so resistance is useless.
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Climate change will not destroy the planet, in fact all environmental change generated by humanity will not destroy the planet. The logical target of all environmental protections is not to preserve the planet but to preserve the conditions under which we evolved. The further those conditions change from what our bodies have adapted to the more problematic and difficult our survival becomes. The more new chemicals we introduce into the environment that we have not evolved protections against the more we wi
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Funny)
And in the meantime while the plant might be being destroyed?
Water it and stop the cat from eating its leaves.
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Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
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We have a test for climate change? Please please please, can you tell us what this test is?
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You seem to misunderstand what a "testable" hypothesis really is.
It doesn't mean that we need to somehow develop a laboratory test to evaluate climate change. Obviously that poses some problems.
A hypothesis only needs to explain observed phenomena and make predictions concerning future related phenomena which can be verified or falsified by observable evidence.
In that sense, climate change as caused by increasing CO2 levels is a testable hypothesis.
Consider an analogous situation: astrophysics. How can we e
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My point is that hypothesis can only be proved, it cannot be disproved. If it canned be disproved, it is not testable.
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If CO2 levels increase/stay the same and the global temperature drops then there would seem to be a problem with the hypothesis.
Politics and half-truths (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, CO2 does rise with temprature however this is a deliberate misunderstanding of cherry-picked facts by the person who popularised this peculiar fiction.
The ice core data does indeed support the half-truth you state but the reason for the initial temprature rise at the end of an ice age is clearly related to the Earth's orbit. When this causes the ice to receed the permafro
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Interesting)
The real issue is that there is currently no unambiguous method of measuring the global temperature
No, the real problem is that "global temperature" isn't a meaningful thermodynamic quantity. Global atmospheric heat content is, but no one has a clue what that is because we need to know both temperature and humidity (ie, both wet and dry bulb temperatures) to determine it.
However, global ocean heat content appears to be measurable, and appears to be rising.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
You entirely miss the point because you ask the wrong questions. It is not about testing climate change. During the Cuban Missile Crisis they hypothesized that if one country launched an nuke, we'd all launch them and it would be the end for us all. That was untestable, but we avoided it anyway on far less testable science than we have today to suggest that climate change is occurring and will alter life on this planet. If the sum of humanity's knowledge suggests that under a certain situation (launching a nuke, or business as usual carbon emissions) something bad has a probability very close to 1 of occurring, it is probably best to avoid it.
Science is frequently about using proxies and models to test whether something will occur without actually having to perform an experiment (which may be impossible). This type of science has been regularly used for climate change. So let's lay out the basics really quickly:
So, science hasn't given up on climate change yet. It's not as if they are saying "there, we've proved it, now we only need to respond." No, scientists are providing as much evidence as possible to help us understand just how much this will or will not affect us.
If they haven't given up on climate change yet, why have you? While you sit there convinced that it's not occurring, we continue to blindly provide an input (carbon) into an extremely dangerous system (climate). All of the knowledge we have says that there is an extremely high probability that doing so will result in extreme shifts and war, famine, drought, etc - and you want to wait for a directly testable hypothesis? Goodness.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
We restrict our energy sources so tightly that we cannot continue to feed our growing population and starve to death
How would driving smaller cars and using energy more efficiently cause people to starve?
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Simple: check the historical record. The one thing that we can be sure of about the climate is that it's always changing. Sometimes it's getting hotter, sometimes colder, but it's always in flux.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Climate change isn't the theory. It is the effect. The theory is that greenhouse gases raise the temperature of the atmosphere of a planet. This has been well tested with small scale experiments and large scale observations (such as observing the atmospheric composition and temperatures of Mars and Venus). There are a lot of details that go into climate change, but the general idea is very common sense:
Step 1: Shine some light in the visible spectrum on an object through a gas that doesn't absorb a huge amount of energy at most of those wavelengths (for example, from any random object that you might see that has a 5780 K blackbody temperature).
Step 2: Choose an appropriate gas (like CO2 or methane) that will absorb a lot of energy from the blackbody emissions of that object (Stefan's Law).
Step 3: Watch the temperature of that gas rise.
Do you get the gist? It isn't rocket science. If you add a shitload of CO2 to the atmosphere, the temperature of the surface of the planet is going to rise.
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And since you brought up observations of Mars and Venus, perhaps you can explain how the recent warming trend has also been detected on Mars? That would lead the cause of warming to be something the planets have in common - the Sun. Empirical measurements show sol
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess that you fail to consider that the "shitload" of CO2 (from all sources, including man-made) account for a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So if 0.5% constitutes a "shitload", what would you call the other 99.5%?
And since you brought up observations of Mars and Venus, perhaps you can explain how the recent warming trend has also been detected on Mars? That would lead the cause of warming to be something the planets have in common - the Sun. Empirical measurements show solar output higher, so wouldn't you think that the most likely explanation would be the most logical one, rather than simple-minded "explanations" of processes that we don't nearly understand?
First, the Earth's atmosphere consists of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, and trace other gases (including water of about 0.5% and CO2 of about 0.05%). Nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas, oxygen is not a greenhouse gas, and argon is not a greenhouse gas. Thus, of the 32 K greenhouse effect, CO2 plays a very important role. Water is the dominant greenhouse gas, but it primarily serves to amplify the effect of other greenhouse gases since warmer air can hold more water. Additionally, water isn't as significant as it may appear (having a tenfold higher concentration than CO2) because it will precipitate out at colder elevations. Thus, CO2 and methane are the primary greenhouse gases that are really driving the greenhouse effect (with their effect amplified by the water vapour).
Second, the possible effects of a slight increase in solar intensity have been noted. They are too small to account for the increase in atmospheric temperature if they exist. And even the largest potential effect could only account for about a quarter of the warming that has been observed.
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Also, for all of us who doubt all the global warming CO2 spoonfeeding, that would like do have some DIY experience; do these steps;
Did you know that there were about twice as many sunspots in the last decades of the previous century as in the early 1900s? And three times as many as in 1830?
Okay, I followed your steps (well, actually I followed some similar steps a while ago) and the result was this [wikipedia.org]. Historically things don't look to bad, but the last 50 years or so show a distinct divergence in sunspot activity and temperature trends. That divergence happens to line up nicely with CO2 trends. Your claims of clear correlation in sunspot activity with recent warming just don't hold up upon inspection of the data. Yes there are clear correlations between sunspot activity and global temperature;
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Please explain how we can test "climate change".
Gee I dunno, make lots of measurements?
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Yes, climate always changes, and since Global Warming is politically tied to Climate change, it is invariably true?
This is hand waving. This is not science.
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1. Water vapor is by a feedback effect. Google "op amps" or something. Water vapor multiplies the effects of carbon (and methane, and other effects that are not modified by feedback).
2. The life that was supported was single celled algae. No cows = no steak = low quality of life.
3. Global temperature is dead accurate for 30 years. It has been measured to a high standard for a century, and has been reconstructed over millennium. It's been rising the whole time.
4. Yeah, we could shut down the THC, and screw u
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2. But if you follow global warming models, as Al shows them to us, the CO2 quantities at that time would make it impossible for even the most basic cellular life to form.
3. 30 years is not a long time. The biggest collection of temp. data used in favor of Global Warming came from NASA and was plagued with a Y2K bug (bizarre, I know). Methods for reconstructing millenia old temperatures are scientific, but well, untested. We may be warming, our indicators suggest we are, but we don't have the data to make a
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, you can't [dailytech.com]
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, y'all know there's no such thing as global warming. The bible says so.
It's about time y'all stop believing in that junk science and realize that inteligent design is how God made us.
I know this because the nice young man on AM560 said so, and he's got an associates degree in divinity with minors in atmospheric science and marketing.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
No it hasn't. That period includes The Little Ice Age, [wikipedia.org] which, among other things, froze out the Viking colony on the West Coast of Greenland as well making it impossible to grow grapes for wine in England. If you're basing your post on the Hockey Stick Graph, [wikipedia.org] you need to be told that it's been repeatedly demonstrated to be an artifact of badly handled data, and thoroughly debunked.
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The hockey stick [realclimate.org] has not been debunked, in fact it has been made more robust by a recent follow up paper [realclimate.org]. If you are genuinely interested
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Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
2. Oil is formed by compressing organic material for a long long time. This means that, prior to life, this CO2 was already in the atmosphere. Meaning, life formed under conditions of higher CO2!!!
Confusing wording, but there is bit of accurate information in it. Much of the world's petroleum is believed to have been formed during periods that were warmer than now, with higher levels of C02, perhaps as much as 2-3x higher or more. While possibly a paradise for some kinds of plants and algae, it should be mentioned that such periods were also accompanied by Anoxic Events [wikipedia.org] and enormous waves of mass extinctions.
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Yay, the next intelligent species on earth will use us as fuel within a few million years! (I'm joking)
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
2. The CO2 absorbed by that organic material has been sequestered for millions of years. The climate required for our lovely little civilisation began a few thousand years ago and depends upon that sequestration.
3. Global temperatures are easily tracked back via examination of ice cores and other scientific methods, back long before thermometers and writing with which to record any observations made.
4. Global warming begets climate change, so functionally they are one and the same. Close observation of past events allows prediction of future events.
5. You have no clue and blindly parrot propaganda without consideration of facts or logic.
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1. They aren't being increased by every boiling pot in America, or every breathing child, or every AC unit in America?
2. Our CO2 levels need to stay within the range of the last few thousand years? We're all doomed for sure then.
3. I agree, scientific, but untested.
4. Right, it predicts change. This is untestable, and self-affirming. If it were scientific, there would be a testable hypothesis. No such testable hypothesis exists, ergo not scientific.
5. Because I disagree?
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2. For the current climate upon which our agriculture (food) depends, which the global population requires, absolutely. We're not all doomed, just a large number of us.
3. The methods by which those observations are proven are well-founded in basic science. I will leave it as an educational exercise to you to discover what those are.
4. The proof you seek is presented every e
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1. They aren't being increased by every boiling pot in America, or every breathing child, or every AC unit in America?
An amazing thing happens when the water vapor in the atmosphere increases, it is called rain.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Funny)
That may contribute a small amount, but the main cause is ...whales!
Since we stopped hunting them(for the most part), they have been increasing in numbers.
When you have more whales, you have more whale breath- great clouds of steam!!
Cow farts? Bah! Whale farts make Neptune tremble and weep!
And don't get me started on rabbits...
Don't Bother Thinking... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you really, really wanted to save the polar ice caps, you'd create a time machine and travel back..say, 19,000 years ago. Back when the polar ice cap extended down into what is modern day Illinois.
Which predates SUVs and industrialization by around...19,000 years or so.
That is one of the global warming metrics, right? Save the shrinking polar ice cap, right? You'd need to go back to a time when you can't blame humans. Even then, you'd have to go back yet again to the previous ice age, or any of the numerous ice ages.
In order to understand that simple scientific concept, you'd to do more than regurgitate Al Gore and co.
Re:CO2 causes Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
1. This is simple high school science. Water vapour in the atmosphere is at it's "satuartion point" and is totally dependent on pressure and temprature, this is why you get dew drops forming in the desert overnight. Any amount of water vapour you pump into the atmosphere will fall out as liquid within days.
2. Coal is the biggest contributor to GHG, the carbon locked up in coal, oil, etc was never present in the atmosphere all at the same time (unless you want to go back before multi-cellular life appeared).
3. Opinion that is not supported by fact or mathematics.
4. The term "climate change" was introduced by skeptics who pointed out that the term "global warming" could be construed as biased.
If you would like to post a link that backs you up we would all be interested, as it stands you are simply trolling by parroting psuedo-skeptical talking points.
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Water vapor is near the saturation point nearly everywhere in the atmosphere. The only place where this isn't true is the polar regions, where most of the water has been frozen out of the air. It's here that CO2 will have its biggest effect. Also, exactly the last place where you want temperatures to rise.
Currently existing oil was conviently put there with the deaths of billions of billions of algae cells. Lets leave their bodies where they are.
The key phrse is not just "Climate Change", but "Anthropogenic
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Global warming isn't really cutting in yet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Global warming isn't really cutting in yet (Score:4, Interesting)
More fundamentally, no one drought can be directly attributed to global warming, just as the current cold winter in NA can be considered as casting doubt on global warming.
Over time, global warming may make droughts such as the one that exacerbated the current AU fire situation more common. During the change, the vegetation left over from the wetter period before global warming will result in some spectacular fires, but it will only be in hindsight that we can say fires were a result of the change.
Oops (Score:3, Informative)
...just as the current cold winter in North America canNOT be considered as casting douby...
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Your acting like climate science is a positive science, where we can do experiments and do direct event correlation.
We can't. We don't know -at all- what is causing climate behavior. All we have are statistical models ... and 80% of that model is the following brilliant rule :
"the weather doesn't change" (= about 80% of any climate model)
And while I may agree that statistically this is, without any argument, correct, it is not a solid basis for predicting the weather a long time from now (or even more than
Re:Global warming isn't really cutting in yet (Score:4, Informative)
Much of the bush in the area (indeed the entire state) has been burnt several times since our last "wet period" over a decade ago. In the summer of 2006-2007 Melbourne was blanketed in smoke for two months where as the normal situation might see smoke for a week or two.
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See also: Indian Ocean Dipole [wikipedia.org].
It's been stuck in the "positive" phase for 3 seasons, which is unprecedented in recent history (past ~100y). The positive phase seems to correspond with warmer western Indian Ocean water. Effects of this phase are stronger monsoons on the Indian subcontinent and deeper droughts in the east.
Here [jamstec.go.jp] is the site maintained by the team who first described the phenomenon in 1999. It has since been evidenced by historical observations this century and examination of fossil coral. BB
Re:Global warming isn't really cutting in yet (Score:5, Informative)
This is incorrect, fire is normal but this one was not (regardless of the death and destruction). There is a metric called the Fire Danger Index [csiro.au] that is used to issue warnings and declare total fire ban days, it is calibrated on the 1939 fires having an index of 100, IIRC the ash wednesday fires that I also witnessed had an index of 70-120. The abnormal conditions [bom.gov.au] for this fire saw the index in the unheard of range of 150-200.
Re:Global warming isn't really cutting in yet (Score:5, Informative)
I think one of the primary issues is we haven't let native Australian's burn the bush the way they always have in the cooler months of the year (say around May or June). I remember seeing something about this on the ABC that because the burning was being done in those cooler months the intensity of the fires were greatly reduced and the most volatile fuel was burnt.
This also had the effect of leaving the less volatile fuel in the ground, so the soil had a higher carbon content and was less prone to bushfires. Ironically, the Aborigines in question were being paid by a power company to do the burning because it offset the power plants carbon emissions.
The reality of Australia's management of the land is we have a lot to learn from Native Australian's, and that's a humility that goes beyond just saying 'Sorry'. Until we grasp that, as a nation, we will have more of these bushfires.
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Unfortunately not TC. I do know the scheme was run(ing) in the Northern Territory.
I think the same can be said for NSW. I have been evacuated once from a bush fire and have witnessed the bush around Sydneys F3 freeway burning badly enough to close the free way.
I did see elvis [wikipedia.org] though - man that thing is huge!
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"Not cutting in yet"?
Um. Is that the flavor of the week?
NO... (Score:5, Funny)
The answer is no. ... we had to rely on the 22nd amendment to get the job done.
Despite Al Gore and Michael Moore's best efforts, climate change did not get Bush fired
Why don't the Austrailians build differently? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some years ago, Fine Homebuilding did an article about houses that did and did not survive wildfires in California. The houses that survived had certain characteristics. They were clad with non-burning material like stucco. They had metal or tile roofs. They didn't catch heat under the eaves. They didn't have trees near the house. The plantings they did have mattered. There was one kind of ground cover that was full of water and that would burst if heated, releasing the water and cooling the fire.
The Australian houses I have seen (in pictures, I haven't been there) had almost none of the characteristics of the houses that survived the California fires. So, my question is; if you live in a country that has bush fires, why don't you build your houses to accommodate that fact?
Re:Why don't the Austrailians build differently? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the houses in the affected areas were as much as 100 years old. They were built when timber was the only material available. Later houses tended to be built the same way either because of tradition, or people wanting to build houses which fitted in with the historic designs.
I work with a guy who has a two story oiled timber house. On the day of the fire he was away from home with his family. When he finally got back a couple of days later he was surprised to find it still there. Another person I work with lost his home (and old farm house) in the fire and barely escaped. They actually drove one way into the fire, turned around and took the last clear road out of the area.
As for vegetation around houses home owners have been blaming local council regulations which prevent them from cutting down trees. One family were fined for removing a tree and later credited that act with saving their house.
Re:Why don't the Austrailians build differently? (Score:5, Interesting)
"As for vegetation around houses home owners have been blaming local council regulations which prevent them from cutting down trees. One family were fined for removing a tree and later credited that act with saving their house."
You may be interested in the councils side of that story, the minutes can be found here [vic.gov.au] (pdf warning). I don't know what happend to the four acres of trees Mr Shehan cut down but from my days working on an old growth sawmill a back of the envelope calculation says that many trees would have yeilded ~5000 tons of processed timber and several thousand tons of woodchips.
Re:Why don't the Austrailians build differently? (Score:4, Insightful)
Traditional wood-framed (cheap shit) construction is popular because it can be assembled with a three-man crew. The components are light (therefore easy to lift) and do not require much in the way of tools on-site. Wood, wood products, plastic, and so forth are very easy to work with for a contractor with modest experience. The tools fit in a pickup truck.
People don't think about what they are buying other than wanting it to look like everything else.
People don't think about using fire-resistant materials like concrete which are far superior to wood, nor do they choose modern metal roofing which is durable and easily outlasts shingles (and weighs less, is stronger in storms, and is much easier to install).
If you want a house to resist fire, simple concrete block construction on a cement slab with a steel roof on steel trusses is a fine way to go. Cut GENEROUS firebreaks around it (fires need fuel, so cut down the brush and trees and compost them away from structures) and have some amount of water under pressure available to fight fire should it reach your home.
If you want outbuildings to resist fire, store flammables outdoors in lockers away from them, and use metal for your structures. I use two forty-foot ISO containers (buy the 9'6" High Cubes if you have a choice) and a Steelmaster garage.
Concrete is durable, termites don't eat it, it doesn't burn, and it lasts far longer than wood. If you want sexy, rustic concrete then mimic adobe structures. Containers are also excellent and could easily replace single-wide mobile homes, and are far stronger and more weatherproof (good to 100mph winds!).
Re:Why don't the Austrailians build differently? (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks to the influence of the environmental lobby in Australia, we have situations like this:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090211-84sw.html?page=-1 [theage.com.au]
Summary: the Sheahan family of Victoria bulldozed a firebreak around their house to protect them in case of a catastrophic bushfire. Of course, anything that involves killing trees places you somewhere between "pedophile" and "war criminal" these days, so the family were taken to court by the local council, and ended up $100,000 poorer.
Then a catastrophic bushfire came along and the Sheahan's is now practically the only house left standing in the district.
Re: (Score:2)
Any hope of them reclaiming any of the fine? (from USA-don't know anything about your laws)
In their shoes, I would be grateful for still having my home...but would be really pissed about the fine after having been proven right!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Climate Change? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Every year, dry areas with lots of vegetation catch fire. This is natural. Every year, humans that are stupid enough to build flammable houses in fire prone areas fight the fires and put them out. This is not natural. If the fire was let to burn out on its own, the thick and highly flammable undergrowth would turn into fertilizer for the larger, healthier, and more fire resistant plants that have historically survived such wildfires. Unfortunately, because society likes to coddle the retards that build in fire prone areas, the undergrowth survives year after year and becomes thicker and thicker. Then when the conditions are especially ripe, like during a drought and wind storm, the brush that had been saved for all those years suddenly goes up and creates a massive fire with the fury of all the years that human intervention prevented nature from taking care of the problem. Lo and behold, the massive super fire is much more destructive than the natural fires would have been. Good job.
Flood prone areas with human settlement have the same problem. Levees prevent the natural yearly floods and deprive the land of the silt deposits that would have normally been left after the flood plains have lived up to their name. This causes the land to over time sink and become less fertile, and then when the levees fail OH MY GOD BUILD AN ARK THIS IS THE WORST FLOOD EVAR!!!1
tl;dr climate isn't the problem, retards fighting nature is
Re:Climate Change? No. (Score:4, Informative)
That's a nice theory, and it's a shame that it's wrong. The arid parts of Western Australia are home to chaparral, [wikipedia.org] the same as Southern California, although some of the species are different. Chaparral is notoriously prone to fire when conditions are right, and many of the species regrow quickly after a blaze. The plants aren't intruders that have pushed out the "more fire resistant native plants," they are the native plants. If you want to live there, you need to learn to keep the brush cut back, plant a barrier of less fire-prone plants around you and build a house that's not going to catch fire quickly when (not if) there's a wild fire.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm glad you do. However, much of the discussion has been about Australia, where chaparral is as much of an issue as it is here, in Southern California, and I thought that that was where you were referring to. Also, many slashdotters have probably only heard of chaparral in news reports and don't have any idea how easy it is to set alight, so it seemed like an explanation would be welcome. Sorry if you thought I was putting
Re:Climate Change? No. (Score:5, Informative)
The ever increasing severity of wildfires in Australia, North America, and elsewhere have nothing to do with any hypothetical climate change. It has everything to do with honest to Cowboy Neal human intervention.
Every year, dry areas with lots of vegetation catch fire. This is natural. Every year, humans that are stupid enough to build flammable houses in fire prone areas fight the fires and put them out. This is not natural. If the fire was let to burn out on its own, the thick and highly flammable undergrowth would turn into fertilizer for the larger, healthier, and more fire resistant plants that have historically survived such wildfires.
You, sir, haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about.
The state of Victoria has been in the grips of the worst drought in a century for the past 12 years, leaving the whole state tinder dry.
The day of Black Saturday the highest temperatures on record were observed in many parts of the state, and extremely hot, dry and high winds were blowing out of the semi-arid center of the country.
You didn't even have to RFTA, you just had to see from TFS that here in Australia we do control burns in the off season, fuel management is a critical part of fire management in this country, especially when you consider that many parts of the country have acclimatised to the fire-stick agriculture practiced by the aboriginal inhabitant of this country for over 40,000 years
If you seriously think that the already observed climatic changes are having no impact on the prevalence and severity of natural disasters around the globe you need to pull your head out of your arse and realise that's not coffee you've been smelling.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you even know what the 'observed climate changes' entail?
From 1905 to 2005, the temperature only increase 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit. From 2005 to 2100, even the most pessimistic model only expects a change of 11.5 degrees. At that rate, it goes up 1 degree ever 8 years. So -maybe- since 1905 we've increased 2 degrees.
Do you -really- think this massive fire was the result of those 2 degrees and not every other thing already posted by others here, including government incompetence in not controlling the d
Re:Climate Change? No. (Score:4, Informative)
As for the observed temprature change being too small to affect large scale environmental change this is a silly argument that is easily debunked by observing Artic sea ice, it's like saying a teaspoon of sugar in your tank can't possibly do any harm to your engine. The amount of energy required to lift the global temprature even one degree is staggering yet the main cause of that increase is an increase in CO2 mesured in parts per million. That trapped energy must go somewhere and it does so mainly in the form of kinetic energy (below a 5km ceiling).
The government may or may not be incompetent but you are ignoring the facts in my summary and you are also ignoring the fact that most of the state has already been (naturally) burnt in recent years, particulaly in the summer of 2006-2007.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You didn't even have to RFTA, you just had to see from TFS that here in Australia we do control burns in the off season
Size of Victoria: 22.8 million hectares. Size of the "planned burns" for 2008, 156,000 hectares. You do the math. My take though is that burning what has to be around 1-2% of highly flammable land is insufficient especially given that there have been a few decades (right?) when Australia fought every fire that cropped up.
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent form of natural selection though, isn't it?
Regrettably, a lot of people don't have a choice but to live in those dangerous areas.
Goverment failed to back-burn, that is the story (Score:5, Insightful)
David Packham is our foremost expert in this area, he "wrote the book".
It is clear that when you let 35-50 tonnes of fuel build up per hectare by not backburning then you will get these sized fires.
We have had similar fires in the 1850s, 1870s, 1930s, 1980s. The common factor is the amount of fuel ready to be burnt.
Shouldn't Climate Change have actually reduced fuel load by killing the trees?
It has a lot to do with the fact that the Government departments failed to conduct the necessary backburning.
There will always be arsonists, lightning strikes and stray cigarettes. We can't stop ignition. We CAN reduce the amount of fuel available to a bushfire. Climate change has nothing to do with proper back burning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There will always be arsonists,
Yes but I do think that if we made less of a song and dance about forecast fire risk days, fewer arsonists would see the opportunity to make a name for themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
So why is he peddling disinformation on the BBC and why is it that I could not find a description of his position at Monash?
"It has a lot to do with the fact that the Government departments failed to conduct the necessary backburning."
Please re-read the summary and look at the reference.
Global Weirding, not warming. (Score:2, Informative)
people are affecting bushfires (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I worked for Vic Roads for ten years and while I saw a lot of politics (particularly between Vic Roads and the police) it never got out of hand the way it seems to be happening within Connex and the fire authorities.
No, climate change hasn't affected it either way.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate change hasn't affected bushfire occurrences significantly in any way. This is all speculation and from a very unscientific standpoint as far as I can tell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfire#Significant_bushfires [wikipedia.org]
Notice where many of these fires occur...Australia. And the documented dates go back to 1851. Climate change has nothing to do with anything, a bushfire is longstanding and naturally occurring event, and has been observed that way for 150 years on record.
Where is the data that shows that fires have occurred more often and burn longer and stronger AND the reason so is climate change and not the fact that suburban sprawl introduces woodland areas to power lines, lit cigarettes as litter, and other human fire related causes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfire [wikipedia.org]
There is the same issue with wildfires occurring in California. And an even bigger threat or cause of wildfires than global climate change is still lit cigarettes being discarded in woodland areas. More on that later.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2327145120071023 [reuters.com]
Here's a short article from Reuters discussing some basic wildfire facts in California.
* During Santa Ana conditions, fires can be easily ignited by nature, in the case of lightning, or by humans. Some are arson, while others can be sparked by machinery operated near dry brush, campfires or carelessly tossed cigarettes. Downed power lines also pose a fire hazard. Once the wildfires are whipped by the winds, they spread quickly and are extremely dangerous and difficult to fight.
* "Fire Season" officially begins in early summer and lasts through October, though officials say that as the state suffers through cyclical drought conditions, they consider the season to be almost year-round in Southern California.
http://ca.prweb.com/releases/20061010/6/prweb393120.htm [prweb.com]
In September 2002, a wildfire that scorched 247 acres on the Camp Pendleton, California base was started by a cigarette butt tossed by a passing motorist.
In January 2001, a motorist driving along Interstate 8 in San Diego County flicked a cigarette butt onto the center median, sparking a fire that burned more than 10,000 acres, destroyed 16 homes and charred 64 vehicles.
http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/40452047.html [kbtx.com]
In Texas, people cause 95 percent of wildfires. The Texas Forest Service says residents should not engage in activities, such as throwing out lit cigarettes, welding and burning debris, that could lead to an accidental wildfire start.
So we are causing a vast amount of wildfires. In some places even 95 percent.
Maybe climate change plays a large role in bushfires, but I need way more evidence to convince me that it's not people being careless with litter, downed power lines, or household electrical fires, etc. causing the majority of these fires.
Re: (Score:2)
No way. A term that isn't used outside of Australia (OK in a few little islands too) occurs mostly in Australia!
That wouldn't be because the exact same thing is called a wildfire eve
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstand. The argument is not that global climate change is causing more fires but that global climate change is causing the fires to be more intense.
As another poster pointed out, this part of Australia is suffering from one of the worst droughts recorded, the week before had record temperatures and the day the fires started was a record hot day. No matter whether human caused or otherwise fires start easier in hot dry conditions.
Whether the unusual hot dry spell is caused by natural cycles or is
historical perspective (Score:3, Informative)
When Europeans first started to exert control over large areas of the Australian coast, they put a stop to the Aboriginal practice of starting bushfires annually. This was done to stop such fires damaging their crops and newly built properties for the most part.
However, this frequent and deliberate starting of bushfires had come into being as a survival strategy. By starting such fires often, the Aboriginies avoided having vast, uncontrollable fires that posed a real danger.
Since that time, bushfires have occurred that are exactly what the aboriginal practice had been designed to avoid, and due to the high density of Australia's coastal regions, the dmaage cost and death toll have been high.
This has been noticed to a greater extent recently because the press are looking for things they can point to as evidence of global warming. This alas is no such thing, its just evidence of man failing to adapt to the requirements of an atypical environment.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure the Aboriginals set fire to the bush to get a few nice dinners, the fire management aspect just happened to be a much better side-affect. Since they have been doing it for so long even the trees adapted their seed pods for a fire so that the saplings would sprout in a nice fertile environment, sterilised of predators.
And since those nice eucalyptus trees were exported to California ma
Global Warming My Arse (Score:2, Informative)
The fires were a direct result of several actions:
1) A hot and drier than usual summer
2) A LOT of fuel on the ground
3) "Environmentally Concious" governance, including banning clearing of ANY land whatsoever, even banning clearing of land as a means of fire reduction.
4) Insufficient backburning, except for when it is too late.
Obviously 3) and 4) are the problems here. If either 3 or 4 (or both) were allowed, then the death toll and property losses would be far less.
Both 3 and 4 are the direct result of inte
Some environmental practices are to blame. (Score:2)
There's a very famous quote by a member of one of the burned out communities. Basically, he was upset that they had been asking for years to have accumulated brush cleared, or even the right to clear brush near their homes, but this was blocked by environmentalists.
The moral is pretty simple. Environmentalists make choices that try to balance people and nature, and if you choose nature sometimes over people, sometimes people will die for it. This isn't the only time this has happened, or will happen. Wh
No, postcard proof (Score:3, Informative)
Actual bushfire science from September 2007 (Score:5, Informative)
By the Bushfire CRC and the CSIRO:
http://www.bushfirecrc.com/research/downloads/climate-institute-report-september-2007.pdf [bushfirecrc.com]
From the concluding remarks:
"In this study, the potential impact of climate change on southeast Australia is estimated. Simulations from two CSIRO climate models using two greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions scenarios are combined with historical weather observations to assess the changes to fire weather expected by 2020 and 2050. In general, fire weather conditions are expected to worsen. ...
The number of "extreme" fire danger days generally increases 5-25% for the low scenarios and 15-65% for the high scenarios. By 2050, the increases are generally 10-50% in the low scenarios and 100-300% for the high scenarios. The seasons are likely to become longer, starting
earlier in the year.
These results are placed in the context of the current climate and its tendencies. During the last several years in southeast Australia, including the 2006-07 season, particularly severe fire weather conditions have been observed. In many cases, the conditions far exceed the projections in the high scenarios of 2050. Are the models (or our methodology) too conservative or is some other factor at work?"
Add to this, the fact that the place is tinder dry precisely because of the preceding 12 years of extreme drought AND the cutbacks to brush clearing and back-burning ("green" policies are an excuse for councils and state governments spending less $$$ - just like every other service they've cut), and you've got the "perfect (fire) storm" conditions we had on Black Saturday.
Given that climate change isn't going away, and that all the models indicate SE Australia will get drier and hotter, and given that governments aren't going to be increasing spending in this area any time soon (OK - maybe they'll be shamed into doing something for a couple of years before the new programmes get cut back again), it is HIGHLY LIKELY that this sort of thing will become a frequent occurrence (say every 2-3 years somewhere in SA, VIC, NSW).
By the way, NASA have a fantastic pic showing how anomalous the heatwave leading up to Black Saturday was against recent summer averages:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36900 [nasa.gov]
Of course, while we were burning down south, the banana benders up north were setting new records for floods.
Re: (Score:2)
1. The failure to control the fuel load using prescribed burns.
Where population density is low you can back burn on vacant land. No problem.
Where population density is high (ie, inner city) fire is less of a problem.
On the urban fringe (like Kinglake) there is no room to back burn, but there is still enough fuel around to keep a fire going.