More heated media prepping tomorrow

Maybe some folk scan listen in on this and take notes.

PRESS ADVISORY: LEADING SCIENTISTS TO DISCUSS CLIMATE CHANGE, HEAT WAVES AND WILDFIRES

WHAT: As a heat wave sweeps across much of the country and wildfires rage in the West, many are wondering about the connection between these types of extreme weather events and climate change. Climate Communication has put together Heat Waves and Climate Change, a summary of the latest peer-reviewed literature on climate change and the recent increase in temperatures — a contributing factor to wildfires. Panelists on this call will discuss how climate change contributes to the extreme weather events unfolding now, their public health impacts and how similar risks could multiply in the future.

WHEN: Thursday, June 28, 11 a.m. Eastern Time

To call in and listen only, dial 1-855-244-8681. The event number is 660 341 332.

WHO:

Dr. Steven Running — Director, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, Dept. of Ecosystem Sciences, University of Montana

Dr. Howard Frumkin — Dean, School of Public Health, Professor, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington

Dr. Michael Oppenheimer — Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University.

Susan Joy Hassol, Director at Climate Communication, will moderate the panel

Some facts from Heat Waves and Climate Change, which will be available tomorrow:

  • Since 1950 the number of heat waves worldwide has increased, and heat waves have become longer
  • In the past several years, the global area hit by extremely unusual hot temperatures has increased 50-fold
  • In the U.S., new record high temperatures now regularly outnumber new record lows by a ratio of 2:1; In 2012, the ratio for the year (through June 26) stands at more than 9:1.
  • In the U.S., the rise in heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere has increased the probability of record-breaking temperatures 15-fold
  • If we continue business as usual, the same summertime temperatures that ranked among the top 5% in 1950–1979 will occur at least 70% of the time by 2035–2064 in the U.S.
  • By the end of this century, a once-every-20 year heat wave is projected to occur every other year

h/t to reader Steve Divine

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William Astley
June 28, 2012 1:29 am

In support of John Slayton’s comment. John Slayton said:
June 27, 2012 at 7:11 pm
“Hmmm…. The day the Supreme Court releases its health care decision. And the House votes on holding the AG in contempt. These guys may be badly in need of attention…but I don’t think they’re going to get it tomorrow.”
William: And the day European leaders discuss the imminent collapse of the EU. The EU has roughly 3 months to find a solution to their bond problem. They appear to need a dose of quantitative easing. (i.e. Print more money.)
Meanwhile, on the climate front.
Did anyone notice that Britain had the wettest spring in 250 years. Wet and cold. Same wet cold weather in Northwest America. Something to keep an eye out for. The solar magnetic cycle appears to have been interrupted. It appears that Svensmark and all will be vindicated. There is a physically reason why there is a 10 to 12 year delay in the onset of planetary cloud changes (both mid level and high altitude clouds are affected) from the increase in GCR, for the special case where the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted as opposed to the normal cycle increases and decreases. There is a physical reason why cosmogenic isotope changes correlate with climate change and there is a physical reason for the delay.

TimM
June 28, 2012 2:10 am

“Maybe some folk scan listen” – need those micro-pauses between words for the speech recognition

Edohiguma
June 28, 2012 2:21 am

But didn’t some US agency state that the current wildfires were triggered by target shooters? All of course without any evidence (sounds familiar) and clearly no knowledge how a gun works.

Paul Mackey
June 28, 2012 2:32 am

I agree with Chris B
“By the end of this century, a once-every-20 year heat wave is projected to occur every other year”
Gibberish

mycroft
June 28, 2012 2:36 am

Are these not the same sort of scientists who tell that the USA only makes up 2% of the earth surface when it come to explaining a very cold winter?

June 28, 2012 2:38 am

Several years ago I took part in a meeting with the mayor of town here in France to discuss a building project and the fire regulations that would be required to be implemented, a representative of the fire departement was also present.
During the meeting discussion drifted onto the subjet of wildfires. The firefighter “predicted” that in a future France would face increasing problems from wild fires, due to the way the country side was managed and changes to volunteer rules for fire fighters coming from the EU.
The mayor said that he had visited California to meet the mayors of some towns over there, and had been told by some of them that when there was a wildfire that got over a certain size, the fire would be “allowed” to get out of control so that an emergency could be declared and the costs for fighting them would be picked up by the federal governement.
.

Peter Stroud
June 28, 2012 2:52 am

In the UK it is floods that are exercising our politicians. I heard one minister state in the House of Commons, with certainty, that our current floods are due to climate change. She went unchallenged.

June 28, 2012 2:52 am

As a heat wave sweeps across much of the country and wildfires rage in the West, many are wondering about the connection between these types of extreme weather events and climate change.
So, forest fires are now “extreme weather events.” I guess that makes firefighters meteorologists, then…

Jimbo
June 28, 2012 2:59 am

As a heat wave sweeps across much of the country and wildfires rage in the West, many are wondering about the connection between these types of extreme weather events and climate change.

An now back to the real world. I have also been speculating wondering about climate trends and not the weather. We have been constantly told the climate is not the weather (unless it backs AGW speculation).

Abstract.
Despite increasing temperatures since the end of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1850), wildfire frequency has decreased as shown in many field studies from North America and Europe. We believe that global warming since 1850 may have triggered decreases in fire frequency in some regions and future warming may even lead to further decreases in fire frequency. Simulations of present and future fire regimes, using daily outputs from the General Circulation Model (GCM), were in good agreement with recent trends observed in fire history studies. Daily data, rather than monthly data, were used because the weather and, consequently, fire behavior can change dramatically over time periods much shorter than a month. The simulation and fire history results suggest that the impact of global warming on northern forests through forest fires may not be disastrous and that, contrary to the expectation of an overall increase in forest fires, there may be large regions of the Northern Hemisphere with a reduced fire frequency.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/3237261/abstract

Decreasing frequency of forest fires in the southern boreal zone of Québec and its relation to global warming since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’
Abstract
Although an increasing frequency of forest fires has been suggested as a consequence of global warming, there are no empirical data that have shown a climatically driven change in fire frequency since the warming that has followed the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’. We present here evidence from fire and tree-ring chronologies that the post-‘Little Ice Age’ climate change has profoundly decreased the frequency of fires in the northwestern Québec boreal forest.
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/3/3/255.short

Abstract
Although an increasing frequency of forest fires has been suggested as a consequence of global warming, there are no empirical data that have shown climatically driven increases in fire frequency since the warming that has followed the end of the ldquoLittle Ice Agerdquo (sim1850). In fact, a 300-year fire history (AD 1688–1988) from the Lac Duparquet area (48°28primeN, 79°17primeW) shows a significant decrease both in the number and extent of fires starting 100 years ago during a period of warming.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m0034368216xq7u3/

Abstract
……………….Thus, an increase in temperature alone need not be associated with an increase in area burned in the North American boreal forest. Since the end of the Little Ice Age, the climate has been unusually moist and variable: large fire years have occurred in unusual years, fire frequency has decreased and fire–climate relationships have occurred at interannual to decadal time scales…………….
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2315.short

Abstact
………..Temperature and precipitation played a major role in shaping fire frequency and burnt area in the first half of the 20th century, but lost their importance during the second half. Our case study illustrates the occurrence of different fire regime patterns and their driving forces on small spatial scales (a few hundred square kilometers). We conclude that the strong rise in temperature over the past century has not profoundly changed the fire regime in Valais, but in the second half of the 20th century temperature was no longer a strong determinant for forest fires as compared to human activities or biomass availability in forests. ……
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d08143873248238k/

Jimbo
June 28, 2012 3:03 am

Extreme weather trends show no trends I think.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/#comment-689783
For those who like reading about weather calamities – here is past bad weather.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/bad-weather/

Jimbo
June 28, 2012 3:08 am

Small correction:

“We have been constantly told the climate is not the weather (unless it backs AGW speculation).”

Should read

“We have been constantly told the weather is not the climate (unless it backs AGW speculation).”

Jimbo
June 28, 2012 3:11 am

Is there a study on arson and accidental camp fires??? It seems to be anthropogenic but has very little to do with the plant food co2.

Jimbo
June 28, 2012 3:16 am

Poptech says:
June 27, 2012 at 11:08 pm
For scientific references I have sections for these on the list,……

Hi Poptech,
You have some good references. May I suggest you put each of your categories into separate pages. It would be easier to browse and easier for the search engines.

Bob
June 28, 2012 3:34 am

Why pick the 1920’s or 1930’s to start? If you pick the 1950’s you miss the high temperatures and catch more folks who “remember” the past few decades. Besides it does seem hotter now than 50-60 years ago. Of course the age difference, no AC way back then and a few decades of working in AC have no bearing on my perception.
Weathermen hype heat waves because the hype sells advertising. Forest management practices appear to intensify wild fires. So pick a day that is in a heat wave with the news broadcasting the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado, ignoring that it was likely started by arson, and you have a great setting for propaganda.

BillD
June 28, 2012 3:38 am

Gee, extreme drought is causing loss of crops in the Midwest and fires in the west at the same time we see record melting in the arctic. Not to worry–at some point the forests will start disappearing as they are in New Mexico, so we won’t need to worry about fires. I have plenty of money to buy food at higher costs and the famines will mostly be in other countries.

mfo
June 28, 2012 4:04 am
jaschrumpf
June 28, 2012 4:16 am

If someone does call in with a question, please be sure to have all the ducks in a row. It does the skeptic position no good to not have all the facts in hand when discoursing with the alarmists, and coming off as woefully uninformed. Perhaps pick just one of the dot points in the press release and refute that, and not try to take on the whole agenda.

Curiousgeorge
June 28, 2012 4:42 am

I hear it’s going to be REALLY REALLY hot in Wash. DC today. At least for a couple people. 😉

Mike M
June 28, 2012 4:47 am

If they do not normalize the data against population increase to account for UHI they have nothing at all. The whopping majority of these records are being set by temperatures in large urban areas. In the summertime the temperature of Boston on a sunny day without a sea breeze can be 10 degrees F warmer than where I live only 20 miles to the north. I experience it often in the summer riding a motorcycle home in the evening starting out in 75 degree air and zipping up my jacket vents before I arrive home in 65 degree air. (Yes, 65 degrees can become uncomfortably cool at over 50 mph )

June 28, 2012 5:19 am

If corn doesn’t get a good soaker by 5-6 July I think yields will get worse. Beans can maybe go a little longer.
http://m.agriculture.com/news/crops/cn-takes-dive-in-crop-progress-rept_2-ar24870
My father says this reminds him of 1954 when he was doing basic training at Ft. Chaffee. Longest string of 100° days in a row. I hope we don’t see that broken.
I told you this last winter wouldn’t be bad. But it turned out milder than I thought. Wasn’t looking for this bad a drought until 2016.

Gail Combs
June 28, 2012 5:20 am

Pamela Gray says:
June 27, 2012 at 7:34 pm
I actually turned on my electric blanket last night.
____________________________
Tell me about it. The cold woke me up 2:30 AM and I put on another blanket. Heck its mid morning and we are up to 64F at the end of June in NORTH CAROLINA.
The problem of course is Stephen Wilde’s Loopy Jets. Yesterday was a perfect example. Cool air sucked down from the north on both coasts while hot air was sucked into the middle of the USA. The forecast is for 102F, 104F, 102F for the next three days as the north pointing part of the jet stream loop travels over us, sucking hot tropical air into the area. Everyone will remember those hot days and forget about the nice 70F weather just before.
http://classic.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xpxJetStream.html
http://classic.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xpxTemperature.html

Kaboom
June 28, 2012 5:41 am

It will be interesting to hear what connection they found between global warming and the 1898 Colorado fires.

Pull My Finger
June 28, 2012 5:42 am

A. Colorado is arid and gets hot in the summer and has a lot of trees. Forest fires? DUH.
B. The last week here in PA had highs in the 60s and low 70s.

June 28, 2012 5:46 am

I’d sure enjoy wading the Umatilla River about now fishing for smallmouth. Caught my first spring steelheads there about 14 years ago. That was quite the excitement deal for a young Arkie.

kramer
June 28, 2012 5:56 am

In the U.S., new record high temperatures now regularly outnumber new record lows by a ratio of 2:1; In 2012, the ratio for the year (through June 26) stands at more than 9:1.
Is this because they are comparing new data to older ‘adjusted’ data (whose adjustments have lowered many older temps)?