Feb 11, 2025 07:38 PM
Human-caused fires growing faster than lightning fires in the Western US
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/artic...us/pgaf012
PRESS RELEASE: A study shows that there are almost twice as many risky days for large human-caused fires in the American West as there are for lightning-caused fires, due to differences in the level of heat and aridity under which each type of fire is likely to occur. The discrepancy is not accounted for in most fire early warning systems. In addition, risky days for human-caused fires are growing faster than risky days for lighting-caused fires as the climate warms.
Fa Li and colleagues focused on Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD), which captures both dryness and heat, reflecting the difference between the actual air water vapor content and saturation. The authors used a Bayesian inference algorithm to model the relationship between VPD and the probability of large fires for the largest 10% of fires in each ecoregion in the western United States.
The estimated VPD threshold for large fires ranged from 1.1 to 2.1 kPa for human-ignited large fires and 1.8 to 3.1 kPa for lightning-ignited large fires. One reason for this difference is likely related to the location of the first ignition. Lightning strikes from above, hitting the forest canopy, which is often living and therefore moist. Human-caused fires often ignite at ground level in dried grass or fine dead branches, material which tends to be very dry.
Thus human-caused fires can catch and spread when the atmosphere is wetter. Across the west, from 1979-2020, about 30 days a year were sufficiently hot and dry for lightning-ignited large fires, while about 58 days a year were sufficiently hot and dry for human-ignited large fires.
The number of flammable days for human-caused fires increased 21% more rapidly than the number of flammable days for fires caused by lightning over the same period. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were responsible for 81% of the increases in human-related flammable days. According to the authors, the results can help build more accurate models of fire risk.
The Paris Agreement is only symbolic - And helping nothing
http://www.science20.com/content/the_par...ng_nothing
INTRO: In 2015, nearly every country signed the Paris Agreement and agreed to keep global warming to below 2 degrees higher than before humans began emitting industrial levels of CO2 emissions.
Yet very little has changed, because every country gets to arbitrarily decide for itself how it can meet its goal, or if it should have a goal at all.(1) That's how useless the Paris Agreement is.
There is a lot of hand-wringing about climate change in America but thanks to natural gas, our emissions per capita are below World War II. They are even lower than World War I, but disaster sells in journalism and environmentalism and panic leads to grants.(2) We have 2 billion people in the world burning wood and dung for fuel.
And it's our fault. Not America alone, every rich country that controls the World Bank. We will not fund any centralized energy loan that isn't solar or wind - despite scientists knowing those will not work. Dr. James Hansen, the Godfather of Global Warming, said Clean Coal technology was the only thing needed to halt emissions concern. Yet all coal is deemed the enemy. Poor countries can't get off true high-emission energy because we won't let them. Instead, we reward them.
President Obama got together with China to talk about emissions and they told him they were a developing nation and he should talk to them in 2030. His media team has to spin that as a win, noting that China had never agreed to any time to talk about their runaway emissions before and then declared we must go back to 2005 levels... (MORE - details)
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/artic...us/pgaf012
PRESS RELEASE: A study shows that there are almost twice as many risky days for large human-caused fires in the American West as there are for lightning-caused fires, due to differences in the level of heat and aridity under which each type of fire is likely to occur. The discrepancy is not accounted for in most fire early warning systems. In addition, risky days for human-caused fires are growing faster than risky days for lighting-caused fires as the climate warms.
Fa Li and colleagues focused on Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD), which captures both dryness and heat, reflecting the difference between the actual air water vapor content and saturation. The authors used a Bayesian inference algorithm to model the relationship between VPD and the probability of large fires for the largest 10% of fires in each ecoregion in the western United States.
The estimated VPD threshold for large fires ranged from 1.1 to 2.1 kPa for human-ignited large fires and 1.8 to 3.1 kPa for lightning-ignited large fires. One reason for this difference is likely related to the location of the first ignition. Lightning strikes from above, hitting the forest canopy, which is often living and therefore moist. Human-caused fires often ignite at ground level in dried grass or fine dead branches, material which tends to be very dry.
Thus human-caused fires can catch and spread when the atmosphere is wetter. Across the west, from 1979-2020, about 30 days a year were sufficiently hot and dry for lightning-ignited large fires, while about 58 days a year were sufficiently hot and dry for human-ignited large fires.
The number of flammable days for human-caused fires increased 21% more rapidly than the number of flammable days for fires caused by lightning over the same period. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were responsible for 81% of the increases in human-related flammable days. According to the authors, the results can help build more accurate models of fire risk.
The Paris Agreement is only symbolic - And helping nothing
http://www.science20.com/content/the_par...ng_nothing
INTRO: In 2015, nearly every country signed the Paris Agreement and agreed to keep global warming to below 2 degrees higher than before humans began emitting industrial levels of CO2 emissions.
Yet very little has changed, because every country gets to arbitrarily decide for itself how it can meet its goal, or if it should have a goal at all.(1) That's how useless the Paris Agreement is.
There is a lot of hand-wringing about climate change in America but thanks to natural gas, our emissions per capita are below World War II. They are even lower than World War I, but disaster sells in journalism and environmentalism and panic leads to grants.(2) We have 2 billion people in the world burning wood and dung for fuel.
And it's our fault. Not America alone, every rich country that controls the World Bank. We will not fund any centralized energy loan that isn't solar or wind - despite scientists knowing those will not work. Dr. James Hansen, the Godfather of Global Warming, said Clean Coal technology was the only thing needed to halt emissions concern. Yet all coal is deemed the enemy. Poor countries can't get off true high-emission energy because we won't let them. Instead, we reward them.
President Obama got together with China to talk about emissions and they told him they were a developing nation and he should talk to them in 2030. His media team has to spin that as a win, noting that China had never agreed to any time to talk about their runaway emissions before and then declared we must go back to 2005 levels... (MORE - details)