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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1044360)	12/22/2017 6:12:19 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 1577007

Fire Fire Burning Bright, How Many Acres Burned Last Night Nick Stokes has extended the discussion on the number of forest acres burned in the US, which basically started in nothing is happening twitter and various blogs that deny climate change is upon us, with the appearance of the graph to the left trying to disprove concern about the current California blazes. To be straightforward about it Nick don't believe the left hand side of the figure, and he quotes from the US Historical Statistics table which comments "The source publication also presents information by regions and States on areas needing protection, areas protected and unprotected, and areas burned on both protected and unprotected forest land by type of ownership, and size of fires on protected areas. No field organizations are available to report fires on unprotected areas and the statistics for these areas are generally the best estimates available." Eli is not going to exactly defend this either, but he will stick by the point he was trying to make that 1900 Galveston hurricane has damn all to do with deaths caused by hurricanes today especially with improved building codes, weather satellites and more. Since forest fire fighting in the US really took hold in the middle 1930s when the federal government got serious about it the left hand side of the figures have not very much to do with the right hand side However, Eli did come up with a way to look at this, by examining the number of acres burnt per fire. One of the interesting things in the above graph which the Bunny did not comment on at the time was the surge about 1980 and the increased variability after that. Nick points to the National Interagency Fire Center data which covers the period after 1960. The data in the 1960 to 1970 period is the same as from the Historical Statistics. The NIFC table at the bottom states that The National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result the figures above prior to 1983 shouldn’t be compared to later data. Which explains that step, but it is not a huge one and it is an increase. Using the data in the Historical Statistics of the United States one can compare the number of acres burnt per fire (apologies, were this an NSF grant Eli would be ethically and contractually bound to use hectares, but it is not) burnt on protected Federal, State and private lands compared to those burnt on unprotected lands about which Nick and others have great doubts. In this picture the red line represents the number of acres burnt per fire on unprotected lands vs the blue line which is the number of acres burnt per fire on the protected lands. The ratio is greater than 5 to 1. For a further internal consistency check one can look at the total number of fires in the protected and unprotected categories bearing in mind that the amount of forested area in the US has essentially remained constant. The number of fires remains roughly constant at 150 to 200K between 1926 and 1955 after which it declines to about 100K. The graph to the right shows that essentially all land is protected by 1970 because there are few fires ther, moreover from the graph immediately above by ~ 1940 burning in protected land had reached either a constant level or was slowly declining. The National Interagency Fire Center table (see first two figures) shows that from about 1980 the amount of forest burnt has increased and the average size of each fire has increased. Of course, since western and eastern US forests are very different beasts, we now need to look at data from both sides of the continent. rabett.blogspot.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1044360)	12/22/2017 6:26:37 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577007

Jerry Brown could've prevented those fires: Jerry Brown vetoed enhanced requirements for undergrounding power lines, blames CA wildfires on nebulous “climate change” Guest Blogger / 23 hours ago December 20, 2017 While Brown proclaims larges wildfires “the new normal”, here’s some scrutiny on his own incompetence in preventing wildfires Guest essay by Larry Hamlin In September 2016 California Governor Brown vetoed Senate Bill 1463 which enhanced requirements for the CPUC and state Forestry and Fire Protection to facilitate the undergrounding of power lines in high fire risk areas across the stately by requiring the states involvement with cities and counties facing high fire risks and by requiring the prioritization of high fire risk regions. The vetoed Bill would have provided enhanced requirements for how the CPUC was to lead this effort by mandating involvement of the states cities and counties along with prioritization of high fire risk regions. Overhead power lines have been linked to a number of major California wildfires including the 2007 Witch Creek fire in San Diego County which destroyed 1141 homes with 21 deaths and in 2015 are also suspected of being the cause of the Northern Ca. wine country fires as well. Wind damaged overhead power lines are suspected as a potential cause of some of the most recent large and tragic fires in California this year. Instead of acknowledging to the public that his decision to veto the enhanced fire fighting requirements of SB 1463 was a poor decision particularly given the huge problems the state faces with wildfires he has attempted to cover-up this error by conducting a high profile political campaign blaming California wildfires on speculative and specious “climate change” driven assertions. At a UN sponsored panel on air pollution in September 2015 Governor Brown claimed that climate change was making California fires more frequent and intense. The conference failed to support Brown’s claim that climate change was driving the states wildfire growth and instead noted other “man made” factors as being responsible for the increased intensity of recent fires. These factors included excessive and unaddressed growth of vegetation in high risk areas, unnatural and long standing fire suppression practices which are allowing the build up of combustibles and the building of large developments adjacent to or near high fire risk regions. All of these factors as addressed in the 2015 conference play key roles in creating and intensifying the most recent California wildfires. According to Cal Fire people are the usual cause of wildfires. “According to Cal Fire statistics, seven of the top 20 most destructive California wildfires were caused by power lines or arson. Another seven on that list are still under investigation or undetermined.” Research by Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service found the following major causes of wildfires: Debris burning, Smoking, Campers leaving fire unattended, Kids playing with matches, Sparks from trains, Outdoor equipment, Weed whackers.” None of these factors which have been known for years to be significantly increasing fire occurrence risks and intensity in California were addressed by Governor Brown in his recent wildfire political campaign. Instead he blithely ignores these real world fire risk issues and tries to shift the blame away from his poor leadership in this area and onto some nebulous claim of “climate change”. A recent WUWT article presents the scientific data which shows the climate alarmist alleged links between climate change and increasing occurrence and intensity of global wildfires are unsupported with this assessment further demonstrated by conclusions of the UN IPCC AR5 report. The main stream media appear to be giving Brown a pass on his failure to provide meaningful and effective leadership in dealing with California’s wildfire issues and instead joining with him in trying to falsely shift blame to phony assertions that “climate change” is to blame. California wildfire occurrences and intensity are clearly being impacted and made worse by “man made” actions but these actions are unrelated to flawed climate change assertions and instead reflect incompetent leadership by California government as lead by Governor Brown to a wattsupwiththat.com