California’s Fires Result of a Cooling Pacific, Two Years of La Niña and Environmental Mismanagement
Guest Post By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, ICECAP
While environmentalists and clueless politicans like CA Representative Linda Sanchez and not surprisingly Climate Progress’ Joe Romm sought to place the blame for the California wildfires on ‘global warming’. the massive California wildfires can be attributed to a cooling Pacific, two years of La Nina and environmental mismanagement.
La Ninas and/or a cold PDO Usually Means Drier California
You can see clearly from the following correlation chart of La Ninas (using the Southern Oscillation Index) with precipitation from CDC, that La Ninas favor dryness in the southwest.
The basin wide Pacific multidecadal warming and cooling affects the frequency and strength of La Ninas and El Ninos. The cold PDO favoring more, stronger and longer lasting La Ninas and the warm PDO more, stronger and longer lasting El Ninos and fewer briefer, mostly weak La Ninas. The PDO turned cold in 1998 bounced some until 2006 when it began a significant decline. See the blue La Nina frequency increasing like it did when the PDO was last cold from 1947 to 1977.
The rapid cooling in the Pacific in 2006 caused the El Nino winter of 2006/07 rains to fail in California. The La Nina that ensued became strong in the late winter and early spring of 2007/08 and came back again for a reprise in 2008/09 winter continued to produce sub normal rainfall.
A few years back McCabe, Palecki and Betancourt published a paper that looked at drought frequency across the United States related to both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Mulitdecadal Oscillation. Droughts in the United States were more frequent when the Atlantic was in its warm mode. When the Atlantic was warm, and the Pacific was also in its warm mode, the dryness was more across the northwest and southeast and when the Pacific was cold more across the southwest. Red areas have enhanced drought probabilities.
We are currently still have a warm Atlantic mode and cold Pacific mode (D) and thus should expect the increased risk of dryness in the southwest. See these maps and read more here.
Environmental Mismanagement
This natural cyclical lack of rainfall combined with unwise policy that Dr. Scott Campbell reported concerning the prohibition against clearing up accumulated brush from the areas surrounding housing developments that were instituted at the insistence of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups has left more fuel for the fires fanned by the Santa Ana winds. The JPL’s Dr Patzert indicated, in a release, were also more common in La Ninas. The risk is also greater because more people built homes in the cooler hills among the trees, putting more than trees at risk.
In addition, environmentalists have reduced the amount of water that can be used for agriculture. Farmers in the Central Valley are asking for a new canal to get water from the Sacramento River, as well as a relaxation of environmental restrictions resulting from a 2007 court ruling limiting the amount of water pumped south from the delta – a giant sponge that absorbs runoff from the wetter north. The ruling was in response to a suit by environmental groups that held that the water pumping through the delta endangered several species of fish, including smelt, green sturgeon, and winter and spring salmon. More here.
What Lies Ahead
Given the current El Nino is in the cold PDO mode, it should be weak and tend to be brief. It may peak this fall and weaken this winter. The increased tropical activity in the eastern Pacific is favored in El Nino years (in some El Ninos they reach California in the early fall in a weakened state – e.g. Kathleen in 1976). The similar El Ninos in the cold PDO tended to produce normal to below normal wet season precipitation and another active fire season next year.
It is likely a La Nina will return next year. Expect another fire season. See more here.
Flanagan (14:52:26) “Yeah, right, just like the 2005 wildfires… in the middle of an El Nino event.”
Note on the La Nina & PPT correlation map above that the correlation for the LA area ranges only from -.3 to -.6, so that means only ~9% to 36% of the variance is explained (assuming one accepts the assumptions that go into the regression model). I would look to deviations of annual PPT from decadal PPT (related to the solar cycle) and also to major changes in circulation patterns (see the works of Russian scientists Sidorenkov & Barkin on the relative motions of Earth’s shells) to explain a substantial portion of the remainder of the variance. One should expect breakdowns in the correlation structure at major turning points (e.g. just after 1900, ~1931, either side of ~1970 – see for example the works of Russian physicists Ponyavin & Zolotova). This relates to the anti-phase of the Arctic & Antarctica, as can be gleaned from the works of Sidorenkov & Barkin. Barkin’s message should not be underestimated. The Russians have been aware of these patterns since the 1930s, but in recent years they’ve moved the discussion to a new level.
Mike D. (12:10:39):
Well, the whole argument over the management of forests is based on claims that what certain people do and what they say is different. You say that this is true of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club says this is true of the timber companies, and sometimes of the Forest Service (who they would argue are sometimes acting on the behest of those companies).
You appeal to your own authority, which may be convincing to you, but leaves me hanging. And your statement that “they care only about engendering megafire holocausts” reveals how completely biased you are. It is ridiculous to claim that any party in these disputes is purposely “engendering megafire holocausts”. While some environmentalists on the other side may say that the timber companies are acting in their own self-interest rather than the larger interests, they don’t claim that those companies are purposely and deliberately causing such disasters (at least none that I would listen to would do that).
Joel,
I don’t appeal to my own authority. I present evidence. There is a slight difference. Your hangups are not my concern. If you wish to assert that the Sierra Club actions do not lead to megafires, you are welcome to produce some evidence to that effect. In the absence of any evidence other than propaganda, your case is weak.
You insert some strawman you call “timber companies.” What, pray tell, are those? Are you talking about logging companies, sawmill companies, forest landowning companies, pulp and paper companies, foreign, domestic, multinational or what? If you are going to present strawmen, the least you could do is define who and what you are talking about.
Is it your assertion that private companies order the US Forest Service around? Can you cite any instances of that? Can you cite where a private company recommended, planned, or otherwise engineered a single timber sale anywhere on federal land?
In the absence of that evidence, it seems some people are engaged in yet another conspiracy myth, something Alarmists are quite fond of. Paranoia runs deep in the Chicken Little crowd. Everybody is out to get them. The “companies” are going to boil the seas!!!! Quick, don tin foil hats before the Q-rays from the alien mothership get us all!
Back here in the real world we are suffering a crisis of megafires that are devastating forests, watersheds, habitat, air quality, homes, public health and safety, and local, regional and national economies. How is it in “the larger interest” to perpetuate holocaust catastrophes?
Mike D. says:
Where’s the evidence part? You say, “I am familiar with this project. The assertions by the Sierra Club are counter-factual. No old-growth is to be cut.” You may be right but it is simply your word against theirs.
Is it your assertion that government regulatory agencies never ever make decisions that might be more favorable to some of their largest and most vocal stakeholders than they are to the public at large?!? It is hardly a conspiracy theory to suppose that at least SOMETIMES they do.
As for conspiracy myths in general, I am not sure what you are thinking of. In fact, what I see is that on the other side, there seems to be conspiracy theories used because you guys have to explain why basically all the respectable scientific organizations (the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in all of the other G8+5 nations, the AGU, APS, AMS, and AAAS) have come down on what you would presumably call the “alarmist” side on AGW.
It’s not but there is quite a bit of debate about which policies (or lack of policies & actions) are the ones that are actually most responsible for these catastrophes.
On SBS News here on Australia tonight, I caught the end of an item about the wild fires in CA which are now under control however, authorities were searching for an arsonist or arsonists. Great! You have nutter firebugs there too. Summer is on it’s way for Australia and already the media are spinning the AGW threat of greater fires. I guess if no power lines fail or aronsists starting fires we’ll be ok. I also understand Victorian authorities have cut clear firebreaks in some places and some of the findings from the third Royal Commission have been implemented.
We’ll see.
The Wildcat Fuels Reduction and Vegetation Management Project, Heppner Ranger District, Umatilla NF Environmental Impact Statement is on the UNF website, has been there since March, and is available for anybody who really cares about the truth to see it and read it.
The Wildcat EIS is the product of extensive public review in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, National Forest Management Act, and the other laws and regulations that pertain.
The Sierra Club was party to and a collaborator in the NEPA process. Their Eastern Oregon representative, Asante Riverwind (aka Michael Christian), was invited to every meeting, supplied with every study, and his comments fully considered throughout the NEPA process. Google Asante Riverwind for profiles of that individual.
Joel, your contention that the “timber industry” is the most largest and most vocal stakeholder in National Forest planning is false. Unless you can back up that assertion with evidence, it must be rejected.
The problem here is that East Coasters with profound ignorance about forests in general and the National Forest System in particular defer to radical elements with political agendas to the great detriment of real forests, watersheds, habitat, old-growth, public health and safety, and every other forest value there is. Kneejerk and false assumptions about “credibility” by folks who live thousands of miles away lead directly to catastrophic megafires and envvironmental devastation far, far beyond their understanding.
Smug ignorance and radical sabotage of forest restoration projects are killing forests and forest-based communities. You have no idea, Joel, no idea at all.
“California’s Fires Result of a Cooling Pacific, Two Years of La Niña and Environmental Mismanagement”…AND:
Arsonists.
2006: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525225,00.html
and:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2006-10-26-california-wildfire_x.htm
2007: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305216,00.html
and:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/27/calif-fires-day7.html?ref=rss
The present fire now appears to have been started by an arsonist and after everyone of these fires, we are deluged with AGWer scientists tolling the end of the world alarm bells. Whether or not the arsonists are boosting the AGW agenda (as per the pro lifer and animal rights nut fringe murderers), The Consensus sure takes advantage. Climate Progress even has done a statistical analysis of the ever larger fires as a measure of AGW armageddon and published a book (Hell and High Water):
From Oct 04-2007 Climate Progress:
http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/24/global-warming-and-the-california-wildfires/
“I researched wildfires for my book — hence the “Hell” in Hell and High Water — and my view is closer to Swetnam’s for several reasons.
First, Southern California is experiencing the “driest year in 130 years of recordkeeping,” precisely the kind of extreme weather event we expect from climate change. We are seeing record droughts around the country — and around the world. Some scientists fear we are at risk of shifting the climate to “a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest.”
!!!Second, we aren’t just seeing bad wildfires, we are seeing record-shattering wildfires. The 2005 wildfire season, which ravaged 8.7 million acres, was record-breaking, and the record it broke was from 2000, when wildfires consumed 8.4 million acres. The 2006 wildfire season easily surpassed 2005, with a stunning 9.9 million acres burned. The 2007 wildfire season is also on a pace to beat 2005.”
I wonder how much would have burned without the arson?
Also to above:
It would be interesting to list the record of acreage burnt in California wildfires by year for, say 50 years. I’ll bet the big jump in these figures begins in the late 90s when serious debate against AGW became noticeable.
CBS’ “60 Minutes” is planning to do an episode about the California Wildfires with the theme that they are caused by Global Warming, either tonight or very soon. Too bad the reporters don’t read this blog. Very interesting discussion.