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The West is on fire [W:86]

"Climate Audit" vs. NASA, NOAA, CERN, et. al.

Even Fido knows that's just silly

laughing-dog-eps-vector_csp16171089.jpg

You are not even trying, just sneer and run.

McIntire ran one of the most honest science blogs around.
 
Now you are DEFLECTING since you answered my question about a 1,200 year period with an article claiming the worst drought in 1,200 years, which I duly contradicted with the official State of California precipitation data (which you never disputed with evidence) that make clear the single driest year was in 1924 and driest multiple years was early in the 20th century (which you never disputed evidence)which show that your article is wrong.

Now you suddenly say this after it is obvious that you can't factually counter the official state precipitation data (which you never did) with this goal post moving statement:



I have successfully refuted the 1,200 driest drought on record claim (which you initially pushed hard) when the data made clear it was THIRD driest. You never showed that the State of California precipitation data is wrong or misunderstood. You went into photos (which doesn't have precip. data in it) to make a claim that is clearly unquantifiable since no actual data are presented, just a visual photo of dead trees.

You can show all the photos you want, but without actual precipitation data you can't make a rational case on how wet or dry it really is.

There is more to the equation than how much rain has fallen from the sky. Like health care, climate is a complex subject.

More on the "worst drought in 1,200 years:

Their study concluded that, in terms of "cumulative severity," drought during the three-year period from 2012-14 "stands out in the context of the last millennium" and was more extreme than droughts that stretched even longer – from four to nine years. Over the last 1,200 years, researchers estimated that three-year droughts occurred about 37 times.

But the lack of precipitation between 2012 and 2014 was not "unprecedented," the study said. There were times near the turn of the 20th century and the early 16th century when there was less rain in a three-year drought period. Higher temperatures, though, may have exacerbated the current drought by as much as 36%, according to the authors. Combined with low rainfall, those conditions made this drought California's worst in more than a millennium.
 
You are not even trying, just sneer and run.

McIntire ran one of the most honest science blogs around.

Sure.
If by "honest" you mean it supports your point of view.

I'm really not sure why so many bloggers are so invested in attempting to refute a scientific theory that is supported by every scientific organization in the world. Perhaps the fossil fuel industry is supporting them. Maybe they really believe the nonsense that they publish. Maybe they just want to see how many people they can fool, I'm not sure. I do know that there are more pseudo scientific denialist blogs on that subject than on young Earth creationism, anti vaxxer nonsense, flat Earthers, ESP, space aliens, or anything else I can think of. I'm really not interested in what they have to say, and refuting the nonsense that they make up is not worth my time.
 
Clearing of brush, cutting of trees, building fire breaks, insisting home owners clear a defensive space around their houses or lose fire insurance, all of that could ensure that fires will be smaller, better contained, and less destructive.

But you're right: fires are inevitable and getting to be a bigger problem.



It is not that simple.

BC has had several million acres consumed in the past four years. Last year there were 1,800 plus fires, all but three or four caused by nature, breaking out hundreds of miles away from habitation and within days become a "crossover" threatening and sometimes destroying towns, and whole cities.

It's easy to say to clear underbrush, but when you have millions of acres of prime, SPF Apex forest all on virtually vertical hillsides it's simply not possible to clean anything....and where would you get a thousand dump trucks to haul it away. Many places still have old growth trees because man can't work at those angles safely.

Since the mid eighties we have been letting them burn, as we learned then fire is part of the forest cycle, and burning is necessary for some trees to release valid seed.

Second, the picture at the top is a complete joke. NO FIRE ever started at the top of the tree, they are so filled with water even hit by lightening they would simple steam out.

Fires, as you noted start on the ground, in that rich, decaying debris field and they work upward, first burning the old back, becoming hot enough to steam off the moisture above. Once it peaks (if it does) it now causes a change in climate, the forest is an extremely low pressure zone, with cold air dying to get in, causing unnatural winds that drive the fore up the mountain side through the debris. One wind from a fire last summer was clocked at over 120 km (about 70mph)

These winds pick up debris and spread it on the wind, starting with coals, but soon becoming basketball sized. Then the fire takes on it's own personality...causing its own winds there is no accurate way to predict where it will go. It is burning for all of its 200 ft height and always seeking new fuel. "Hell" is considered a fire moving outward in all directions. They are hot enough where the moisture contained in the tree gets steamed off, the fire can crown - meaning it jumps from tree top to tree top.

In fires last summer and the two years before firefighters often told of driving away from a fire on a highway at 60 to 100 k and losing ground to it. And then there are the exploding trees. The trees in the coastal rainforest have adapted,m they take all the water from the spring and store in their trunks. Sometimes the water in tee will become trapped, it expands from the heat and then blows out. Some of them can travel three lengths of a football field jumping rivers and ponds.

It takes maybe three blowing onto rooftops to destroy a town in minutes.

They sometimes become so hot they ground the bombers and helicopters as the heat turns the water into steam before it hist the ground.

Why it has become so much worse than 40 years ago is cause for debate, but the numbers don't lie, we don't get enough freezing in the winter to kill off insects, not enough rain in the spring and the average summer high is climbing. The tinder gets dryer and dryer.

When I first started covering news here I had never heard of a "crossover fire", now they are routine.
 
DI-16hVV4AAoOU8.jpg



Colombia River Gorge, just one of 137 large wildfires currently raging across the West.



and it's burning up the Forest Service's budget as well:

usfs-budget.jpg





Fires and fire prevention must become more of a priority.

Do you agree? Why or why not?

read more here
I would agree absolutely.
 
Sure.
If by "honest" you mean it supports your point of view.

I'm really not sure why so many bloggers are so invested in attempting to refute a scientific theory that is supported by every scientific organization in the world. Perhaps the fossil fuel industry is supporting them. Maybe they really believe the nonsense that they publish. Maybe they just want to see how many people they can fool, I'm not sure. I do know that there are more pseudo scientific denialist blogs on that subject than on young Earth creationism, anti vaxxer nonsense, flat Earthers, ESP, space aliens, or anything else I can think of. I'm really not interested in what they have to say, and refuting the nonsense that they make up is not worth my time.

No because he tried hard to post the code and data of papers he was criticizing, allowed guest posts in reply and allowed professional trolls like Sod post there for a long time.

He was the one who exposed the "hockey stick" paper, by a paper he published in Nature, exposing the mathematical flaws. Subsequent investigations by the North Report and the Wegman report supported McIntire/McKitrick paper conclusions.

I consider the following Creationism, anti-vaxxer, flat earthers, ESP, as bunk. Not completely convinced aliens don't exist, but skeptical.
 
This is an area I haven't looked much into at all. I suspect you are correct about the large, slow moving river, but cannot really agree or disagree. The ice mass balance that keeps getting different numbers is also no concern to me. The largest of their numbers is rather insignificant to the whole earth, and I don't trust any of the measurement methods they use.

It makes sense to me that Greenland would be gaining rather than losing ice, but again... I really don't know. None of this is concerning to me, because for the oceans to rise 1 meter, there would have to be a 360,000 gigaton loss of land ice. These two to three hundred gigaton ranges are well under 0.1% of the ice needed to do that. Again, insignificant.

I really wish these people could understand the thousand plus years it takes for solar equalization, and that we had over 250 years of low solar activity, which means we will continue to regain lost heat in the oceans for at least two centuries after 1850, or until the solar activity drops to where equilibrium is. I really believe we will continue to see thermal expansion until 2100 or so, caused by the sun. Not CO2.

I agree that the rate of ice mass change is not significant but that is not my point.

The argument that sea levels will rise and this will cost lots of lives is wrong at many levels;

1, 1m rise will not cause any land (of any value) to be lost. Land we care about we will protect.

2, The 1m sea level rise is a figure stretch upwards massively. The required component of that rise due to come from Greenland is in the order of 300mm. That as you say is 360 x 300 Gt. Not going to happen.

But the point that the present rate of ice mass loss as quoted by NASA/GRACE being 300Gt/yr (a third of what they need for the impossible sea level rise) being obviously not happening is that this is the utterly blindingly obvious lie that is being banded about.

That this is the smoking, well blazing, gun of out and out fraud.
 
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Precipitation includes the snowfall.

You are realy bad at this.

I'm bad at it? If you're not a better plumber than you are at attempting to disprove global warming theory, I don't want you working on my toilet.

Of course precipitation includes snow, rain, sleet, the whole thing. Here in California, the important thing is snow, as it melts and provides water during the dry summers. Rain is of secondary use.
 
My point, as made many many times, is that those numbers require 18 Mississippi months of out flow per year to break even and an additional 7 Mississippi months to get the loss rate.

I'll give you half a Mississippi is flowing out of Greenland, that's my guess based on looking at the google maps images during the high summer time when the photos are taken being a quarter of a Mississippi but it may well be as much as twice that, looking at google earth is only ever going to be a rough and ready guess.

So that would be 6 Mississippi months for all year if it flows at that level all year round. It does not that is the peak flow rate.

Greenland is gaining ice. Lots of it.


Here's what real science says about that:
Dr Ruth Mottram, Dr Peter Langen and Dr Martin Stendel are climate scientists at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) in Copenhagen, which is part of the Polar Portal.

Yesterday saw the final day of the Greenland ice sheet melt season. This marks the traditional point of the year where scientists look back at the past 12 months and see how the ice sheet is faring.

Overall, initial figures suggest that Greenland may have gained a small amount of ice over the 2016-17 year. If confirmed, this would mark a one-year blip in the long-term trend of year-on-year declines over recent decades.


and here's now the bloggers spin it:

Greenland’s ice sheet kicked off 2017 gaining about eight gigatons of snow and ice, which is well above what’s usually added to the ice sheet Jan. 1 for the last 24 years, according to Danish meteorologists.

In fact, Greenland’s ice sheet has been gaining ice and snow at a rate not seen in years based on Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) data. DMI reports the Greenland ice sheet’s “mass surface budget” has been growing significantly since October.
 
There is more to the equation than how much rain has fallen from the sky. Like health care, climate is a complex subject.

More on the "worst drought in 1,200 years:

Well, considering that drought has two specific meanings, I cannot say they are lying. I can however say they are relying on the misconception people have of the definition.


Definition of drought
1 : a period of dryness especially when prolonged; specifically : one that causes extensive damage to crops or prevents their successful growth

resistant to drought

2 : a prolonged or chronic shortage or lack of something expected or desired

a drought of creativity

They use the second definition, knowing people are familiar with the first. Yes, as populations increase, drougfhts cause more water shortages. It isn't because precipitations are less than other past timers, but because more people are using the same limited supply of water.

Blame population growth. Not CO2, else be an ignorant. They even say in the study referred to: "the lack of precipitation between 2012 and 2014 was not unprecedented,"

Read the whole paper. Not what the pundits lie about when referring to a paper.
 
These winds pick up debris and spread it on the wind, starting with coals, but soon becoming basketball sized. Then the fire takes on it's own personality...causing its own winds there is no accurate way to predict where it will go. It is burning for all of its 200 ft height and always seeking new fuel. "Hell" is considered a fire moving outward in all directions. They are hot enough where the moisture contained in the tree gets steamed off, the fire can crown - meaning it jumps from tree top to tree top.

In fires last summer and the two years before firefighters often told of driving away from a fire on a highway at 60 to 100 k and losing ground to it. And then there are the exploding trees. The trees in the coastal rainforest have adapted,m they take all the water from the spring and store in their trunks. Sometimes the water in tee will become trapped, it expands from the heat and then blows out. Some of them can travel three lengths of a football field jumping rivers and ponds.

It takes maybe three blowing onto rooftops to destroy a town in minutes.

They sometimes become so hot they ground the bombers and helicopters as the heat turns the water into steam before it hist the ground.

Why it has become so much worse than 40 years ago is cause for debate, but the numbers don't lie, we don't get enough freezing in the winter to kill off insects, not enough rain in the spring and the average summer high is climbing. The tinder gets dryer and dryer.

When I first started covering news here I had never heard of a "crossover fire", now they are routine.

You got it right, but there are regional differences. Here, the brush (chaparral) burns periodically, which isn't a problem unless there are buildings around. That's why brush has to be cleared near buildings. Way out in the hinterland, it's better to let them burn. The thing is, California alone has more people than all of Canada, and therefore a lot less hinterland and a lot more houses in the path of wildfires.

Yes, fires start on the ground. Once they're hot enough, they do "crown." just as you described, and go from tree to tree on the wind that they create. When that happens, it's really difficult to stop them. Dead trees tend to go up like torches. Unfortunately, out hotter and drier winters have killed a lot of trees, and they're just there waiting to become torches.

Basically California has three types of ecosystems that are prone to wildfires: The lower hills are mostly covered with dry grass, which burns readily but not very hot. Fires there are easy to stop. Higher up, we have chaparral, Spanish for brush land. How hot it burns depends on how long it's been since it last burned or was cleared. Where there have been no fires for a long time, brush will burn very hot. Where fires are allowed to burn periodically, they do little damage unless there are buildings in the way, which is generally the case. The biggest fire locally in recent memory burned off several square miles of chaparral, which grew back the following summer. Wild flowers were spectacular in the burned area. Hot fires tend to burn the roots as well and create mudslides, such as buried some expensive mansions in Montecito, near Santa Barbara.

Then, higher up. there's the boreal forests, similar to what you have in Canada. These can take little fires that stay on the ground, but are destroyed by big fires. Once the trees are burned, it takes many years for them to come back.

Had to delete some of your post as my response was too long.
 
Yes Chaparrals burn rather often. The extent of financial damage is because of more and more housing being built outward from the cities. Not because of climate change.

The Chaparrals were very hot cars though!

1024px-Chaparral_2J.jpg



Chaparral2F_2013.jpg


1920px-Bonnier%2C_Chaparral_2D%2C_1966-06-03_%28Sp%29.jpg


Chaparral_2K.jpg
 
You got it right, but there are regional differences. Here, the brush (chaparral) burns periodically, which isn't a problem unless there are buildings around. That's why brush has to be cleared near buildings. Way out in the hinterland, it's better to let them burn. The thing is, California alone has more people than all of Canada, and therefore a lot less hinterland and a lot more houses in the path of wildfires.

Yes, fires start on the ground. Once they're hot enough, they do "crown." just as you described, and go from tree to tree on the wind that they create. When that happens, it's really difficult to stop them. Dead trees tend to go up like torches. Unfortunately, out hotter and drier winters have killed a lot of trees, and they're just there waiting to become torches.

Basically California has three types of ecosystems that are prone to wildfires: The lower hills are mostly covered with dry grass, which burns readily but not very hot. Fires there are easy to stop. Higher up, we have chaparral, Spanish for brush land. How hot it burns depends on how long it's been since it last burned or was cleared. Where there have been no fires for a long time, brush will burn very hot. Where fires are allowed to burn periodically, they do little damage unless there are buildings in the way, which is generally the case. The biggest fire locally in recent memory burned off several square miles of chaparral, which grew back the following summer. Wild flowers were spectacular in the burned area. Hot fires tend to burn the roots as well and create mudslides, such as buried some expensive mansions in Montecito, near Santa Barbara.

Then, higher up. there's the boreal forests, similar to what you have in Canada. These can take little fires that stay on the ground, but are destroyed by big fires. Once the trees are burned, it takes many years for them to come back.

Had to delete some of your post as my response was too long.



Excellent except in our forests crown fires are the easiest to stop...you knock them down with bombers, they burn themselves out. Its when the dense debris turns to coals that things get hairy.

I did not make allowance for regional differences, we've been hit so hard these past years you forget other places have fires.
 
“Anticipated changes in flood frequency and magnitude due to enhanced greenhouse forcing are not generally evident at this time over large portions of the United States for several different measures of flood flows.” [link]

New paper looks at data record of flooding & rain from landfalling US tropical cyclones. “We do not detect statistically significant trends in the magnitude or frequency of TC floods.” [link]
 
“Anticipated changes in flood frequency and magnitude due to enhanced greenhouse forcing are not generally evident at this time over large portions of the United States for several different measures of flood flows.” [link]

New paper looks at data record of flooding & rain from landfalling US tropical cyclones. “We do not detect statistically significant trends in the magnitude or frequency of TC floods.” [link]

Of course not. The increasing damages we see from such events are because of the way we use the land.
 
Climate News
[h=1]Study: cut down trees in California to save billions of gallons of water[/h]From the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION and the “tree huggers nightmare” department Billions of gallons of water saved by thinning forests Too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests stress water supplies, scientists say There are too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests, say scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO).…
 
Climate News
[h=1]Study: cut down trees in California to save billions of gallons of water[/h]From the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION and the “tree huggers nightmare” department Billions of gallons of water saved by thinning forests Too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests stress water supplies, scientists say There are too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests, say scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO).…

We should increase our watersheds wherever possible. How about being able to store enough water in our watersheds for a whole year's worth of water, and another year's worth of water in pumping reservoirs.
 
Climate News
[h=1]Study: cut down trees in California to save billions of gallons of water[/h]From the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION and the “tree huggers nightmare” department Billions of gallons of water saved by thinning forests Too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests stress water supplies, scientists say There are too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests, say scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO).…

Not only would it save water, it would prevent wildfires as well, and perhaps provide some usable lumber in the process. People are starting to come around to that idea, beginning to listen to science and not to politicians and environmentalists.
 
This is what they need to do to the foothills of Southern California...



You terrace those hillsides and rainwater is able to seep into the ground taking weeks and months to percolate through, so it is available for the dry seasons.

They are doing this in some of the driest regions of the Earth with spectacular results!

It's not so much the amount od precipitation, it is how what does fall is able to seep into the hill.

California would have more water than they know what to do with.

I would like to see this country become a fresh water exporter...

There is an average of 29 wars being fought at any one time over water.

Thx :)
 
This is what they need to do to the foothills of Southern California...

[video Hope in a Changing Climate - by John D. Liu (2009)]

You terrace those hillsides and rainwater is able to seep into the ground taking weeks and months to percolate through, so it is available for the dry seasons.

They are doing this in some of the driest regions of the Earth with spectacular results!

It's not so much the amount od precipitation, it is how what does fall is able to seep into the hill.

California would have more water than they know what to do with.

I would like to see this country become a fresh water exporter...

There is an average of 29 wars being fought at any one time over water.

Thx :)

Nice video watched the whole thing, too bad they had to blab about
reducing carbon in the last five minutes. One of the reasons that these
arid lands are now able to produce is because CO2 in the atmosphere
is up 40% from what it was decades ago.

Instead of me putting up some link usual crowd will pooh pooh just
Google "The greening of the planet"
 
Nice video watched the whole thing, too bad they had to blab about
reducing carbon in the last five minutes. One of the reasons that these
arid lands are now able to produce is because CO2 in the atmosphere
is up 40% from what it was decades ago.

Instead of me putting up some link usual crowd will pooh pooh just
Google "The greening of the planet"

Um, no...

No, it is the water that is now available...

And trees scrub the air of carbon, why is mentioning that a problem?

And here is what wiki says about the documentary you mention: "The Greening of Planet Earth is a half-hour-long video produced by the coal industry, which argues that rising CO2 levels will be beneficial to agriculture,"

Thx :)
 
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why not include better aqueducts and better roads, as well; let's simply draft, "trouble making gun lovers in the trouble making age range", and regulate them well, in the process.

fire support could be included as a civic bonus.

Our Second Amendment is not Only about law enforcement.

Let's save some money by providing the option of "enrolling in the militia", for State security purposes, and becoming well regulated in the process.

i suggest, one battalion per county, minimum.
 
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Nice video watched the whole thing, too bad they had to blab about
reducing carbon in the last five minutes. One of the reasons that these
arid lands are now able to produce is because CO2 in the atmosphere
is up 40% from what it was decades ago.


Instead of me putting up some link usual crowd will pooh pooh just
Google "The greening of the planet"

The Loess Plateau has been barren for hundreds of years, it was deforested thousands of years ago and has been overgrazed for hundreds of years, long before the industrial spike in carbon.

"According to historical records, vegetation destruction occurred nationwide and frequently in preindustrial China; the four most frequent causes were firewood collection, charcoal making for heating in winter, land reclamation, and brick making and construction of houses and palaces. As an example, the Loess Plateau, the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization, was well covered by grasses and trees at least until the Western Han (206 b.c.-a.d. 8), but has been largely turned into barren land after long-term vegetation destruction induced mainly by human activities and partly by climatic change."

In fact, they say it has gotten much worse since climate change:

"With this change, the region experienced the most intense soil erosion in the world and a significant decrease in water tables of rivers, lakes, and groundwater; it was turned from flat land into hills with deep gullies, and from a culturally and economically advanced area into a backward one."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0045653594901643

And there are plenty of places around the world that are still barren, why hasn't the increased carbon greened them up?

But that IS a great video, right before our eyes we see those hillsides go from moonscape to lush greenery with reservoirs forming at the base of each hill...

So there is plenty to DO America, get BUSY!

Thx :)
 
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