Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See update at end] [Note correction under Figure 1.]
Our charmingly incompetent California Governor, Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, has announced that all climate-change deniers are “definitely contributing” to the wildfires in the northern and southern parts of the state over the past few days, as well as blazes “in the coming years.” So look out, you dang “deniers”, it’s all your fault!
He continued:
“This is not the ‘new normal.’ This is the ‘new abnormal.’ And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years … And unfortunately the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they’re going to intensify. Predictions by some scientists are we’ve already gone up one degree; I think we can expect a half a degree, which is catastrophic, over the next 10-12 years. So we have a real challenge here threatening our whole way of life.”
And what is his brilliant solution? Why … to my shock and surprise, Governor Moonbeam proposes throwing more and even more taxpayer money at it:
“And we’re going to have to invest more and more in adaptation. When we talk about things like the climate, and the warming climate, and we talk about words like ‘adaptation,’ that’s what we’re talking about. And it’s not millions, it’s billions, and tens, and probably hundreds of billions even in the span of a few years.”
So … did scientists actually “predict” that past temperatures have gone up by one degree? Can scientists actually predict the past? And can we really expect half a degree of warming in the next decade? To get some perspective on these questions, I thought I’d take a look at the records. I found an interesting site, the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), which has a variety of weather-related data state by state. So with no further ado, here is the average temperature in California from January of 1895 to the present, October 2018.
Figure 1. Average monthly California temperatures from the WRCC. The seasonal variations have been removed.
Now, has the temperature gone up by one degree as the Governor said? Well, yes, but only since 1895. Since 1895, it has been going up at a rate of about 0.12°C, twelve-hundredths of a degree Celsius, per decade. [NOTE: An earlier version of this post mistakenly stated that the trend was two-hundredths of a degree per decade, rather than the correct value of twelve-hundredths of a degree per decade. The text has been changed to reflect the correct values. My thanks to Grietver, the commenter who pointed out my error.]
How much is twelve-hundredths of a degree Celsius? Well, as is widely known, temperature decreases with altitude. You can feel this when you go from sea level up the side of a mountain, for example. The rate at which the temperature drops is about 1°C for every hundred metres of additional altitude.
And this means that 0.12°C is about the altitude-caused temperature drop between … wait for it … the ground floor and the fourth floor of a building. In other words, it’s equivalent to moving 12 metres (40 feet) vertically up the side of a mountain …
So obviously, the Governor is telling porkies when he says that anthropogenic temperature rise is the cause of the recent decade’s fires. The temperature rise in California is small, twelve-hundredths of a degree Celsius in a decade. That is not enough to make a big difference like the increase in fires that we’ve seen in the last decade.
Well, if it’s not the temperature, how about the rainfall? Is climate change making the state dryer? Fortunately, the WRCC has the data for that as well. Here’s the monthly rainfall in California.
Figure 2. Annualized monthly rainfall in California per the WRCC. Since rainfall data is usually given in inches per year, not per month, I have multiplied all of the values by 12 to “annualize” them, in order to make the trend a yearly trend.
Is the precipitation decreasing? Yes … by a totally meaningless five-hundredths of an inch (1.1 mm) per decade. So that is clearly not the reason for the increase in fires.
So what is the reason for the increase in fires? Actually, there are a few reasons.
First, our forests have not been harvested properly for some years. This is the result of a variety of lawsuits, one of which banned logging in many areas in 1994. This was in a vain attempt to protect the Spotted Owl. Unfortunately, this was just a green fantasy—stopping the logging has had no effect on the decline of the Spotted Owl. It appears that instead, it is being displaced by another owl, the Barred Owl. Oops … and there have been a host of other lawsuits that have stopped or restricted logging.
Next, California regulations highly restrict both the logging and the thinning of forests. After the fires in Redding, Governor Brown said he’d work to change the laws … but so far, crickets.
Naturally, when you don’t log and you don’t thin the forest, you get a buildup of what is called the “fuel load”. This is the amount of burnable stuff per acre. And when that happens, what would otherwise be a small fire turns into a large fire very quickly
Finally, a couple of years back we had a big El Nino/La Nina event. This led to the recent couple of warmer, drier years. There’s a name for this, and it is not “climate change”—it’s called “weather”.
Now, there’s been a meme circulating on the internet saying that President Trump is bad and wrong to blame the State, because according to the meme, 98% of the forest in California is National Forest, and 2% is State Forest. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But in fact, about 43% of the forest is privately held, and of the remainder 98% is Federal and 2% is State forest. So overall, about 44% of the forests in California are ruled by California laws and regulation.
But wait, as they say on TV, there’s more … both of the recent fires, the Camp Fire in Paradise and the Woolsey Fire in Thousand Oaks, occurred on privately owned forest. Which means the Federal Government had nothing to do with the regulations leading up to these fires.
Should President Trump have been so aggro? Of course not, that was a mistake … but I can understand his anger, given that Governor Brown is claiming that the fires have nothing to do with California regulations.
But not to worry. The Governor said that steps to combat global warming can still, eventually, “shift the weather back to where it historically was.”
Ah, yes, back to where it historically was, to the mythical Climate Eden, where the weather is the same year after year after year …
Where once it never rained till after sundown
By 8 a.m the morning fog had flown
Don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot
[UPDATE] A commenter asked:
Could you please give us a ‘public relations’ plot of the “Average monthly California temperatures from the WRCC” on a hardware store thermometer
We’re nothing if not a full-service website:
Here, my gorgeous ex-fiancee and I staying in the Youth Hostel in Santa Cruz on our way back home. The smoke from the forest fires was bad in the Central Valley on the way up from LA, but it’s relatively clear in Santa Cruz. The word from where we live, though, is that it is still quite bad there … we’ll find out tomorrow.
Best regards to all,
w.
PS: When you comment, please quote the exact words that you are discussing, so we can understand just what you are talking about.
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Thank you for this Willis, the Camelot climate Eden was appreciated and usually missed I had to read this to my husband. We are in a camper in Sanborn County Park, Saratoga, just over the hill from you, hoping there are no sparks in these woods!
If such low temperatures are now in the US, what will happen in the winter?
The animation below shows the increase in wind speed in southern California.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=namer×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
Currently we’re importing enormous amounts of Canadian lumber. Why not ease logging restrictions on our West Coast and bring some of that spending back home.
Probably a long-term drought contributed to the fall of the Mayan cities.
That’s definitely the theory for the Pueblo culture
Also.
The 1923 Berkeley Fire was a conflagration that consumed some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely-built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley, California on September 17, 1923.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Berkeley,_California_fire
Poor fire prevention 95 years ago too.
Watch this silent newsreel clip from that Fire:
https://archive.org/details/Berkeley1923
Looks a lot like what is happening now with Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire.
TheMagicMolecule™️ atmospheric concentration was 300 ppm.
But Moonbeam wants to blame ClimateDeniers for the fire. Blaming non-believers is just like any Voodoo Witchdoctor would do when the volcano is about to erupt.
Here is an actual video of one of Governor MoonBeam’s inner circle witch doctors putting a curse on Climate Change non-believers.
Feel the Burn: To Avoid Year-Round Wildfires, California Needs to Up Its Forestry Game
https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2015-09-23/feel-burn-avoid-year-round-wildfires-california-needs-its
START QUOTES … [SOME OMITTED]
Contributing to the problem is the way we fight wildfires and fund wildfire fighting, Stephens says, observing that the emphases in wildfire combat have changed in recent years. A few decades ago, fire-fighters could employ landscape-scale strategies to control fires. …
“The problem has been the explosive growth in interface [suburban intrusion into forested areas],” Stephens says. “Now wildfire fighters have to devote much or even most of their time and effort to protecting property. That’s extremely expensive.” …
And the shifts in wildfire priorities are crippling wildland management agencies. This year, said Stephens, “… 52 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s budget will go to fire-fighting. That’s the first time the fire-fighting budget has ever gone over 50 percent. …
… California’s coniferous forests could be at least partially protected with some basic changes in land use policy. First, says Stephens, the explosive growth in interface must be controlled. That’s a job for the counties and state.
“The counties are allowing, even encouraging, development near or in our forests,” says Stephens. “The more growth we have in interface areas, the worse the problem will be. We have to change that trajectory, and the counties in particular have to play a responsible role.”
Second, people who build houses in the woods should pay for protecting them. …
What is needed, says Stephens, are aggressive thinning and “prescriptive” fire programs. Using chain saws, heavy equipment and low-level fires to thin timber, we would essentially fireproof our wildlands by re-creating the forests of yesteryear, forests that were characterized by large, well-spaced trees that were resistant to catastrophic burning. And in the process, we would be providing jobs for thousands of young people anxious to earn paychecks in the outdoors.
“But we can’t do that if we spend 40 to 70 percent of our forest budgets on fire suppression,” Stephens says. “Unless we get suppression costs in line and start investing in active management, we won’t get ahead of this issue. We have perhaps 30 years to do it before our forests change irrevocably. And it can be done—we know what to do, and how to do it.”
Posted on September 11, 2015 – 2:39pm
END QUOTES
Do not plant trees containing essential oils (pine, eucalyptus) near houses.
Feel the Burn: To Avoid Year-Round Wildfires, California Needs to Up Its Forestry Game
https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2015-09-23/feel-burn-avoid-year-round-wildfires-california-needs-its
START QUOTES … [SOME OMITTED]
Contributing to the problem is the way we fight wildfires and fund wildfire fighting, Stephens says, observing that the emphases in wildfire combat have changed in recent years. A few decades ago, fire-fighters could employ landscape-scale strategies to control fires. …
“The problem has been the explosive growth in interface [suburban intrusion into forested areas],” Stephens says. “Now wildfire fighters have to devote much or even most of their time and effort to protecting property. That’s extremely expensive.” …
And the shifts in wildfire priorities are crippling wildland management agencies. This year, said Stephens, “… 52 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s budget will go to fire-fighting. That’s the first time the fire-fighting budget has ever gone over 50 percent. …
… California’s coniferous forests could be at least partially protected with some basic changes in land use policy. First, says Stephens, the explosive growth in interface must be controlled. That’s a job for the counties and state.
“The counties are allowing, even encouraging, development near or in our forests,” says Stephens. “The more growth we have in interface areas, the worse the problem will be. We have to change that trajectory, and the counties in particular have to play a responsible role.”
Second, people who build houses in the woods should pay for protecting them. …
What is needed, says Stephens, are aggressive thinning and “prescriptive” fire programs. Using chain saws, heavy equipment and low-level fires to thin timber, we would essentially fireproof our wildlands by re-creating the forests of yesteryear, forests that were characterized by large, well-spaced trees that were resistant to catastrophic burning. And in the process, we would be providing jobs for thousands of young people anxious to earn paychecks in the outdoors.
“But we can’t do that if we spend 40 to 70 percent of our forest budgets on fire suppression,” Stephens says. “Unless we get suppression costs in line and start investing in active management, we won’t get ahead of this issue. We have perhaps 30 years to do it before our forests change irrevocably. And it can be done—we know what to do, and how to do it.”
Posted on September 11, 2015 – 2:39pm
END QUOTES
Moonbeam is simply trying to distract attention away from the factors that are actually responsible for the fires including poor land/forest/brush management, ineffective regulation of PG&E and other utilities and neglect of infrastructure (including gas and power lines, water, dams, roads, etc). And to showcase his stupid ideological policies including subsidized solar panels, windmills and Tesla’s for rich dudes.
What a disgusting scumbag he is and a lousy custodian of California’s infrastructure and natural resources. I am sure, however, he feels absolutely no shame.
Moonbeam vetoed SB 1463 (Clear the brush PG&E) which passed unopposed in the house and senate then signed into law SB 901 which sticks the tax payers with the cost of PG&E malfeasance. And for those that missed the irony he misdirects by shouting lies about climate-change while being in bed with PG&E.
42 dead so far, isn’t about time to deal with the real problem, greed and corruption by politicians and environmentalist.
WSJ Editorial Board agrees with Willis.
“Trump is a bully, but he’s right about bad forest management.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-paradise-lost-1542068600?mod=mhp
Please pay attention to the circulation in the tropopause.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_150_NA_f00.png
If, as Moonbeam claims, dryness is the new normal, than once a forest burns, it won’t grow back.
If it doesn’t grow back it can’t burn down again.
So if Moonbeam is right, then wildfires can’t be the new normal.
Why is everyone waiting for El Niño? The Sun is above the Earth.
Remember what the bastion of “wise government action” Rahm Emanuel said when he was Obama’s chief of staff: “Let no good crisis go to waste.” Turn, twist, spin every tragedy into something for political gain.
So far the warmists have developed an whole litany of “crises” to blame on global warming most all of which have nothing to do with climate but gross mismanagement by Left wing politicians and overly protected technocrats. I became more and more a skeptic as the warmists blamed evermore things of global warming, several of which I knew from history had been around for at least much of my long life.
So you don’t buy the explanation that these fires can be explained by a 0.01C increase in global temperatures since last year?
The wind speed around Los Angeles has grown to over 60 km / h. The gusts over 70 km / h.
Being from sunny Cal, I have spent most of my life listening to the latest Fall season firestorm. Most people’s memory is short but mine is not. Fires burn in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Sierra Nevada most years. That is just the California climate. There is a good list of California wildfires here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires
It is wise to remember that they begin with a high pressure zone, which is cold air aloft that descends. This is why the windborne wildfires always occur in the Fall. It is due to cold air.
Climate changes is a convenient excuse by politicians to avoid blame or necessity to do something about the problem. Here are some changes I have observed in the last 60 years that contribute to the problem.
1. More people, more cars, and more power lines to start fires – California’s population has doubled in my lifetime.
2. More homes built on hillsides in the wildland-urban interface to be destroyed by the fire
3. More land designated as protected habitat for species listed as rare, threatened or endangered
4. Fire suppression that allows fuel to build up and disrupts the natural fire cycle
5. The ban on the use of asbestos in construction. Todays’ insulation is for outdoor temperatures 20 degrees above indoors, not 2000 degrees. The purpose of asbestos containing insulation was to stop fire, not to save on heating and air conditioning bills.
6. Increased use of combustible native vegetation in landscaping to save water
7. Lack of building code enforcement for WUI construction and legacy homes that precede modern code
8. Trees growing in the utility corridor
9. lack of defensive space or windbreaks
10. Use of combustible trees in landscaping
It is no wonder that windborne fires are so destructive here. A quick google search indicates there is a growing recognition that towns built in fire-prone areas need to plant windbreaks with fire-proof trees such as cypress. The problem is that it is easier to blame climate change than to take preventive measures.
+10
Blaming natural phenomena on super-natural causes.
Reminds me of the 1973 film The Wicker Man.
What next Governor Brown-Energy is going to perform human sacrifices of climate change “deniers” to appease the Gods?
I forgot to mention something else – there has been an evident change in firefighting practices here due to risk aversion. What we are seeing here is that firefighters are less inclined to defend homes and neighborhoods from fire. To avoid risk they will establish a defensible line along a highway or railroad track and let all homes in the path of the fire upwind from the defense line burn. In the case of the town of Paradise, it was clear that defense lines were quickly established along surrounding Hwy 32, 99 and 70. Unfortunately the town of Paradise was upwind of 99 directly in the path of the fire. I do not believe the individual firefighters themselves have any say in what they defend, I am not blaming them. It is a management decision. Coffey Park burned to the ground in Santa Rosa in 2017. There must have been 1,000 homes in that neighborhood. The homes were older and had crawlspace foundations where windborne burning embers could enter the crawlspace through crawlspace ventilation and burn the house down from the hardwood floor up. It was evident that the firefighters had established a defense line along the railroad tracks downwind and let Coffey Park burn. A similar fire had burned in the same footprint 50 years earlier called the Hanley Fire. Coffey Park was spared then. Probably because it was defended. The most common entry for fire in a home is attic ventilation. We have more and more of that due to a desire to keep attics cool in summer for energy conservation. As the song goes, “When will they ever learn”. Every solution begets another problem.
Wasn’t there a softening of requirements on physical condition in order to recruit more female firefighters?
I just thought of the implications of what I just said. A decision to let an entire neighborhood or community burn to avoid risk to firefighters must be made at the highest level of state government. In this state it means at least CalOES or CalFire HQ in Sacramento or perhaps even the Governor’s office??
The Federal Government pays for disasters through FEMA. A federal investigation into the State decision-making process that leads to the abandonment of entire communities in the path of a fire might be warranted, just to make sure that the State decision-making process is sound and not passing excessive cost to federal taxpayers.
The death toll in Paradise stands at 42 and continues to rise. Firefighters don’t just protect property, they protect lives. Six lives were lost in the 2017 Norcal fires. This time it will be much worse. In recent years I have come to feel that my life and property are not protected by my State.
My I am talkative today. With regard to national forests in California. It is true that a century of fire suppression caused fuel to build up and wildfires to become more and more destructive. They have figured this out and now try to let natural lightning-set fires burn. Sometimes the fires get out of hand but usually not. Right now there is a serious problem here with pine bark beetle infestation in old trees. Clearing of dead trees is rarely allowed. The dead trees are left to burn. Another problem we have here is that most trees were harvested 100 years ago to feed the railroad. Our forests are mostly replanted, sometimes with a monoculture, usually all the same age. But I believe the Fed now does the best that it can with forest management under the circumstances.
We have another serious problem. Native grass here is mostly perennial. Most of it has been displaced with invasive grasses that are annuals. They grow in winter and spring and die in the summer. The grass fires we get in summer and fall are not entirely natural. Attempts to restore native grass have mostly been unsuccessful. The seeds of the invasive annual species are in the soil and can last for five years before sprouting so are impossible to eradicate. So we have learned to live with grass fires.
Long ago this State did mechanical vehicle inspections. Now they only check smog emissions. Many of the fires here are started by vehicles in poor mechanical condition. Engine fires, sparks, flat tires, short-circuits. This State has a Mediterranean climate that typically gets no rain from May to October. No rain also means no lightning to set natural fires. Most fires here are set by people, cars, or power lines. PG&E is working right now to reduce fires started by downed power lines. The number of wildfires set by cars is easily reduced by implementing a vehicle inspection program.
Here is an interesting description of the Old Normal, published in 1890, before the demonic CO2 molecule had its chance to destroy California’s perfect, stable, and entirely hospitable climate:
EXCEPTIONAL YEARS: A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA FLOODS AND DROUGHT
J. M. GUINN
Historical Society of Southern California, Los Angeles (1890)
Vol. 1, No. 5 (1890), pp. 33-39 (7 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41167825?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
A wind-damaged PG&E high tension power line has been identified as the initiation source for the Camp Fire. As a consequence of this disaster and their negligence in not doing what they could have done to prevent it, PG&E is now in deep legal and financial trouble.
Advocates of renewable energy technology, wind and solar backed by batteries, are claiming that renewable powered microgrids can avoid the need for routing high-tension power lines through heavily forested areas prone to wildfires.
My view is that Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s) might some day be useful for powering a microgrid electric power architecture of the kind now being proposed. For example, thought has been given to using SMR’s for Puerto Rico’s long-term power needs. Unfortunately, general commercial availability of SMR’s for these kinds of applications is at least a decade away.
In its decision to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, PG&E said that California can easily achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030 assuming that appropriate and timely investments can be made in the right technologies. PG&E sees no further need for nuclear power in California and so would not consider using an SMR for a microgrid even if one could be made available within the next few years.
As restitution for their mistakes in not shutting down their power lines soon enough to prevent a sparking of the Camp Fire, consideration should be given to forcing PG&E to use Chico and its surrounding service area in an experiment for determining how best to create an independent renewable-powered microgrid which can be used as a model for other areas of the state.
The microgrid PG&E employs for the Chico area would include both wind and solar facilities, plus enough energy storage capacity to allow for a 70% renewable, 30% non-renewable energy resource mix as measured on an annual basis.
In this way, the true costs of a maintaining a 70/30 mix over a year’s time between renewables and non-renewables — the same mix PG&E says is easily achievable statewide by 2030 — can be accurately monitored and assessed using a real-world large-scale prototype microgrid.
On the extreme vulnerability of California homes to wildfire:
When I was a kid, when I went up into my parents’ attic I would find non-combustible insulation. They used rock wool. Vermiculite was also commonly used. Concern arose about inhalation of airborne fibers. My own first homes were insulated with fiberglas. Fiberglas will burn, but requires a high combustion temperature. When I go into my attic today, I see blown cellulose. Cellulose is highly combustible at a relatively low temperature. If I could afford it I would replace it. I have to assume that the exterior walls of my home are insulated with cellulose as well. I live in a tract development home which means all the homes in my neighborhood are insulated with cellulose. Cellulose has taken over the insulation market here because there is no health risk from inhaling airborne fibers. If a single burning ember of less than 1/8 of an inch entered my attic through a vent screen, it would likely burn the house down. I am located in a state prone to windborne firestorm and I live in a house made of paper. Welcome to California.
As if that were not enough …. They have discovered that the use of vapor barrier, OSB and cellulose in exterior walls makes it prone to dampness and mold growth. The solution? They now ventilate exterior walls. A new home here has a minimum 1 inch overhang at the bottom of an exterior wall. There are holes in the underside of the overhang. This serves the purpose of ventilating the inside of the walls to keep them dry. It also provides a possible entry for windborne burning embers.
Just to make the fire risk complete, I have a gas water heater located in my garage. If there is ever a fire in my garage, my house will become a bomb. I have added foam insulation to my garage door. There is a large gap under the exterior door into my backyard. That allows gasoline vapors from the cars, denser than air, to escape along the garage floor. It also would allow burning embers to enter the garage. Fortunately in my house it happens to face south. In other homes in this development of the same design, the door would face north, upwind in a firestorm.
I live near open space. By the wildland-urban interface (WUI) definition I live within it because it is less than 1/4 mile from my house to open space (grassland). In this town, goats are used to reduce fuel buildup in the grassland. It is expensive but environmentally friendly. Something I’ve noticed in the grassland is that many homes at the interface have back fences made of non-combustible concrete, stone or brick. They are doing what they can to live in an environment in which wildfire is a part. Believe it or not some have wooden fences, with dead wild oat grass a foot high leaning against it. Often they have gas-fed backyard grills.
But keep on blaming climate change, Mr. Governor. The Governor currently lives in the fully restored Governor’s Mansion in the middle of downtown Sacramento that he refused to live in the first time he was Governor, choosing a nearby apartment flat instead. I believe he has always been an urban dweller, his father having been a Governor. Most people here are driven to the Burbs and the WUI due to the extraordinarily high cost of housing in the coastal urban areas. Like me, I believe he has lived in California most or all of his life. Unlike me, I don’t believe he has observed the kinds of changes the common folk experience that I have observed.
From 1999 to 2007 Governor Brown served as Mayor of the City of Oakland.
In October 1991, almost 30 years ago, the Tunnel Fire aka Oakland Hills Firestorm destroyed 2,843 homes and killed 25 people in the Wildland Urban Interface of north City of Oakland. What have we learned since then? Not enough. But we’ve learned to blame climate change.
California has definitely a problem with wood consumption as this prop65 label states:
“WARNING Burning this manufactured firelog results in emissions that can expose you to chemicals including carbon monoxide, soot, smoke and other combustion by-products, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and/or other adverse health effects. For more information go to http://www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.”
More where this came from : http://pdf.lowes.com/prop65warninglabel/754087101142_prop65.pdf
From this point onwards, sky’s the limit.
Hi Willis, in your excellent commentary you said, “The rate at which the temperature drops is about 1°C for every hundred metres {love the Imperial spelling} of additional altitude.) I believe that this is the dry adiabatic lapse rate. It will hardly affect the point of article, but I am curious why not the wet rate of around 0.5°C per hundred metres, which rate I believe is more typical of the world in which we live.
Thanks for another interesting analysis,
Cap in Concord
If California is ready to look farther than its nose to find a way to stop these recurring catastrophes, perhaps something can be learned in Australia. The combination of heat , drought and an abundance of gumtrees that are prone to burst into flame suggest they are in a similar predicament., if not a worse one. They have had quite a few such disasters, but the frequency has decreased, which suggests that they have learned to manage this better over time.