We are told that Amazon fires are at record levels right now. This is a blatant lie. The only “record” is that Amazonian fires have DECREASED over the “record”.
This is what we are being told.
This (is) what the data actually looks like, to August 22. Yes, its updated daily.
This comes from a wonderful site, https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#elbeni
It uses NASA MODIS data, from the Terra and Aqua satellites, and is updated daily. By going to the website, you can look at individual regions in the Amazon, or as I have done, look at the totals for the Amazon. This site also has global data, but I am only looking at the Amazon region here.
The Interactive Graphs are very informative. Hovering the cursor over the graph will show the data at that point.
You can highlight individual years, by clicking on a year in the legend at the bottom of the graph. That year remains bright, while the rest are dimmed. Using Eyeball Mark 1 Trend Indicator (EBM1TI), 2019 is slightly high, but not at record levels. Not even close.
One thing I saw by looking at each year, was a rough pattern – one or two bad years, one or two years at much lower levels, then a bad year. This pattern is there until 2010. 2010 was the last “bad year”. Levels since 2010 have been 1/2 or less of the “bad years”. The old pattern has been broken.
Not only does this site calculate number of fires, it also calculates carbon emissions (in Tg) from the fires. Note that the site issues a caveat about estimated later data, hence its grayed out.
This emissions chart from the website shows what I was talking about, in alternating bad/good years. But as I said, only until 2010. It is obvious there is a reducing trend in emissions, again using EBM1TI.
Again, by hovering the cursor over the bar chart, you can look at data points. Clicking on a legend at the bottom will highlight that series.
Is it significant? Dunno. I need to download and trend the data. I can say definitively, that there is no increasing trend, and 2019 is a LOONNGG way from record territory.
Note that the Annual Emissions would have to incorporate fire area, to get the total emissions. Just in case anyone would object that fire numbers are not fire area.
Conclusion: Amazonian fires, using very current NASA data, show a decline over the record, and are nowhere close to a record so far in 2019.
Postscript 1: As Willis often says, if you disagree with something I said, quote exactly what I said, and why it is wrong.
Postscript 2: This might be a good Reference Page. Have a “Fires” page, with the MODIS charts embedded. Charles, Anthony?
Postscript 3: The NY Times claims 2019 fires are way up, over 2018. That is correct. What they don’t say, is that about 1/2 the years BEFORE 2019 are higher, and about 1/2 are lower. Cherry picking of the first order.
Postscript 4: Nick Stokes points out that one province is at record levels of fires. True, its just under record levels today. But that means that the rest of the entire region must be UNDER average (2003-present). Looking at each region in the Amazon Basin, that is indeed true. Santa Cruz and Amazonas are above average, the rest are at or well below average. Result? The entire region is very nearly at the MODIS average for this time of year.
Les Johnson
“This ( is)? what the data actually looks like, to August 22. Yes, its updated daily.
Thanks, I will update. I have mild dyslexia, and often omit or duplicate small words. Its a pain. I used to have to PRINT out my writing, to see the error. I often miss it on a screen.
Les,
Here is my solution to this common problem.
Use the read text facility in MS Word and listen to what you have written.
It is truly astonishing how many errors you find by listening to your text that cannot be detected by looking at the written word.
Philip
Yes, many tests (and FB jokes) shows that mind fills in what is missing in written versions but not verbal..
Damn it. I should have tweaked on that before. Very good tip.
Appreciate it.
Here is a tip which has served me well over the years. When you attempt to edit something you’ve just written by reading it you are not actually reading it; your brain is using the words to trigger your memory of what it is you thought you typed. So, trick the brain (not difficult in my case). Instead of typing directly into the answer box use a Word file. Then select your work and change to a completely differently looking font which your brain will think is something new and will have to actually read it. Edit, then change back to your preferred font. Cut and paste the finished product (also a Word file is good way to keep a log of your online comments).
Don’t feel bad – I have nystagmus – my eyes jump around and I skip words – often ending up omitting or repeating things myself.
Am I seeing wrong or the data refers to Fire Counts or Ignitions and not to burned area? I would like to see data about burned area and comparison with previous years.
The president of INPE, Ricardo Galvão, was sacked from the direction of this important brazilian Institute because the Brasil’s “Choosen One” did not agree with this year’s increase in burned area. Facts that are easily falsifiable. So far the “choosen one” was not able to falsify them…
Emission is not ingnitions
“Yes, it’s [it is] updated daily.” Not “Yes, its [belonging to it, its property] updated daily.” Just a contractional grammar note.
Good article.
Of course. Apostrophe police are correct.
Temperatures, Storms, Polar Bears, Wild Fires, Rainfall, Ice Cover, Greenland, Antarctica, …there is not a single topic that the Alarmistas and Warmistas will not lie about, manipulate, distort or corrupt in their desperate search for data supporting their failed theory..
…and vice versa
Bullshit Griff – skeptics don’t HAVE a “failed theory.”
Have empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 drives the Earth’s temperature? Didn’t think so!
Griff – Remember that the global warmingists made the mistake of proposing a mechanism for the amplification. Thirty+ years of measurements by both balloons and satellites have not observed the proposed mechanism. Scientists usually revise their theory or abandon it if the proposed mechanism is not observed. So far we hear nothing from the CAGW scientists. They don’t discuss this lack of agreement between their theory and data.
Before you label me a denier, I agree with the data showing that the earth has warmed after the little ice age. It is also clear from geologic data of sea level that it has been warmer in the past (after entering the interglacial) than it is now. CO2 does not appear to have played a part in that, as the data do not suggest it was much higher than it is currently.
I disagree with the proposed accuracy of the current climate data and I disagree with a lot of the adjustments to the data after the fact. Adjusting data is a big deal in my profession. It is not done lightly. The raw data are ALWAYS shown and the adjustments supported, except in the climate science discipline. That behavior causes me to be quite skeptical of the adjusted climate data. The raw data carry some weight, which is why I believe we are warming currently.
Are the changes to data “adjustments” or are they literally changed data?
I have no problem with the notion of adjusting data in the sense of a logarithmic transformation for example. That’s a different approach to looking at the data, but he core data remain unaltered.
It’s my understanding that the original data has been altered i.e. actually changed from the original measurement for reasons that, regardless of what they may be, are completely indefensible. Such as ‘old uncle Bob that was manning the Stevenson screen had poor eyesight and was known to not wear his glasses all the time, so he surely must have overestimated the measurement – we’ll adjust that downward’.
Go to any supervising professor in any scientific field. Ask them to allow a graduate student to change their data that they have collected. Not transform it, not run it through something like canonical correspondence analysis – literally change it. You will not find a single one that agrees to that.
I’m not sure if this article refers to Alarmistas or Warmistas or both.
Everything and all of ’em, from the garden variety bedwetters to them there full on panic mongering doomsday catastrophists.
Gotta watch out for those Catastrophysists
Seems to me that in one breath, they claim a record of ALL deforestation, then make it seem that they are talking about fires only ? IMHO…
“Amazon fires turn political as Brazil’s president calls out France’s Macron”
https://www.foxnews.com/world/amazon-fires-turn-political-as-bolsonaro-calls-out-macron
“Bolsonaro, who admitted that farmers may be intentionally setting the fires to clear land, admitted his country does not have the resources to control the fires, Reuters reported.”
Soooo, not “Global Warming” !
SO YES Global Warming.
The probable reason to clear cut and burn the Amazon Rainforest is to plant Palm Oil Palms for Biofuel production because…Global Warming
Excellent.
Thanks!
“or as I have done, look at the totals for the Amazon”
The Amazon region, as on that graph, is very broadly defined. It even includes Peru. If you restrict to Amazonas, which seems to be the region in question, it does seem to be a record, and more especially, has shown a very rapid recent rise.
You realize that Amazonas is a small part of the Amazon Basin. It is indeed near record heights (just below right now).
That also means that the rest of the Basin must be BELOW average.
For the entire Basin, 2019 is nearly exactly 1/2 way. There are as many previous years above the 2019, as below it.
The highest density of biomass is in Peru and Columbia…
The Amazon actually likes global warming and high CO2 levels…
https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/ecoregions/amazon-basin-climate-and-fire
Thanks, David. The Amazon Basin is huge, and not just in one province in Brazil. Your reply captures this better than mine.
So let me get this straight Les. In your opinion the issue is not the ongoing and recently increased destruction of the world’s largest rainforest and most biodiverse region, but the possible exaggeration of the ongoing deforestation?
You’ve written a dozen spittle-flecked paragraphs about the former but zero about the latter.
This is meh, move along, nothing to see territory?
Yes, exactly. Glad you finally bought that clue you so desperately needed!
“The highest density of biomass is in Peru and Columbia”
But the stories are about Brazil: the CNN headline cited says
“Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is burning at a record rate”
Not Peru or Colombia, and not including the drier and more fire-prone areas like Gran Chaco, which Les Johnson has included. You can argue about whether Amazonas is the best designation, but it is much closer than what is done here. And it is a record.
Nick Stokes. You are right.
Brazil’s rain forest is the topic. Looking at global or continental issues is irrelevant.
It’s what is going on in Brazil that is the question.
Nick
The Gran Chaco is not included in the map in Johnsons post. In general I’m not fond of the WWF, but I agree with their view of where the Gran Chaco is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Chaco#/media/File:Ecoregion_NT0210.svg
Personally I would perhaps put the southern border a little furter south, but that is immaterial in this context.
Actually, the site Les links to is quite comprehensive. If you look at it, you find that 6 of the regions are in Brazil, and you can look at each one. Amazonas is a large region, and their fire count just fell below the record year for them, which was 2005. None of the other areas are even close to a record, and a couple of them are running near their lows this year.
Mato Grosso and Para, two other Amazonian provinces, together are larger than Amazonas, and there are 3 more Amazonian provinces in Brazil Amazonas is far from being the whole story of fires in Brazil’s Amazonian provinces.
And Les’s basic point is well supported by this evidence, namely, that this worldwide hysteria about how this year’s fires are the worst ever in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon, is, yet again, an example of Fake News.
“Amazonas is far from being the whole story of fires in Brazil’s Amazonian provinces”
But the story isn’t about fires in Amazonian “provinces”. It is about fires in the Brazilian rainforest. Mato Grosso is in the catchment region, but is by no way rain forest. It is a drier, fireprone area. And that is what is happening here. It says that the Brazil rainforest fires are not a record, because in previous years there were more fires in places like Mato Grosso. But fires there are common; fires in the rain forest are unusual and important.
It is NOT a record today. Amazona is a small portion of the Amazon Basin.
Any data with 20 years of data, and multiple sub regions; I can find any trend or record or record; in any direction. It is called cherry picking.
Actually, number of fires ranking in Peru and Bolivia is similar to Brasil.
Another point is many fires today occur on agricultural land which was cut out of the rain forest in previous years. Hence, rain forest destruction should trend lower, even if number of fires is constant.
“Mato Grosso is in the catchment region, but is by no way rain forest. ”
Northern Mato Grosso is rainforest. I’ve been there so I know. The southern part is cerrado.
Hey Nick, up above you wanted to talk about Amazonas when you wrote “If you restrict to Amazonas, which seems to be the region in question,” so we started talking about Amazonas since you brought up Amazonas.
Now you’ve changed your mind. Boring. Pointless. Factless.
Very True. What the Rain-forested Amazon area doesn’t like is Mans misguided attempts to control the ever changing climate through mitigation strategies like Slash and Burn the Forest to plant Palm Oil Palms for Bio Fuel production to combat Global Warming.
Dave, can someone explain how an area of tropical lateritic soil can be “the lungs of the earth’? We only see a net gain in atmospheric O2 when CO2 is removed and the the carbon stored somewhere—-peat bogs, deep anoxic water bodies etc. Assuming the living biomass to be a fairly stable volume of fixed carbon, and the soils to not be actively accumulating humic matter, the tropical forests ought to be carbon neutral. Am I missing something?
“Am I missing something?”
In short, no.
Doug
August 23, 2019 at 11:09 am
Yes, you’re asking a very important fundamental question to which I know not the answer but maybe someone here does
Presumably when a rainforest tree is growing it absorbs CO2 and produces O2, so that is beneficial. But when it dies all that stored CO2 goes back into the atmosphere and O2 is consumed in the process. Is the whole cycle CO2 neutral or is there more than just a temporary benefit? And how much CO2 is stored in the (probably lateritic as you say) soils?
The science is not settled, to me at least, on this. But I’m not a botanist so happy to be (re-)educated by those with the knowledge.
Tropical rainforest undoubtedly likes it warm and wet but your blinkers have prevented you from noticing,
1. Rainforest does not thrive when it is being clear-felled and burnt.
2. As much as 75% of the Amazon’s rainfall comes from evapotranspiration and there is strong evidence it partially creates it’s own weather. At some point cutting it down is going to breach a threshhold and that will see a large portion of it collapse.
3. Deforestation is a major source of CO2, just what we need – another pulse.
Meh move along nothing to see?
Now Les, you are being totally inconvenient with facts, something Nick learned to ignore while at the CSIRO (Or whatever Govn’t paid job it was).
Nick didn’t notice that the data refers to fire counts and not burned area. How about burned area? I certainly do not like Alarmists fact choose or cherry picking but, as any normal scientist, i do not like to twist facts also. You can have an increase in fire ignitions and less burned area and exactly the opposite.
“Nick didn’t notice that the data refers to fire counts and not burned area. “
It was Les Johnson’s choice of statistic, not mine. He said it wasn’t a record; I just responded that if you look at the region they are talking about (rain forest in Brazil) it was.
Such is the nature of Statistics
Mr. Stokes: TW2019 debunked this point at 11:55 a.m.. If you look at the region YOU are talking about above, it is one of several regions IN THE BRAZIL RAINFOREST. You seem to have made the same mistake as the author.
Nick: You said “It was Les Johnson’s choice of statistic, not mine”. I quoted both # of fires, and total emissions, which includes area.
Also, SOME rainforest in Brazil have near record fires. Most does not. Again, as the entire REGION is near average, that means the areas not near record, are BELOW AVERAGE.
“I quoted both # of fires, and total emissions”
But uselessly. If you look at the annual estimate provided, it says that it is based on a linear relationship between emissions and fire counts. It is not an independent statistic.
“that means the areas not near record, are BELOW AVERAGE”
Actually, it doesn’t mean that at all. There is no arithmetic that says that if some places are high, others must be lower than average . Unless you mean the average measured for July 2019, which would be trivial. But apart from the arithmetic fallacy, I don’t see the point. No-one made claims about fires in the Mato Grosso.
Actually if memory serves me, Amazonas is the largest province in the area, perhaps in all of Brazil.
Cherry picking again ? They don’t say “Amazonas”, they say the “Amazon”, as in, all of it !
On Twitter, I had one reply, that said I need to ignore the drought years, and use data only after 2011, and only use the province of Amazona.
With that selection, it would be one sweet cherry pie.
..Kinda like the “97%” B.S….lol
Glad you didn’t take their “expert” advice !
FFS, Nick. You’re turning into Griff.
Peru, Bolivia and other countries contain vast tracts of the Amazon Basin. The Amazon rises in Peru.
“very rapid recent rise” Really! Almost as if some groups were setting fires intentionally? What happened during July to cause this to be? What could be so terrible that people are willing to destroy what they claim they want to protect?
In late news – Cartographers discover that Peru is not just mountains.
Nick, you ae correct in part of your comments. Amazonas is a State in Brazil, it is a small part of the Amazon Basin Rainforest. I note that all of the video of the fires in Amazonas are in grasslands and agriculture zones, not in actual rainforest. The immensity of the Amazon Rainforest is difficult to comprehend, but here’s one comment: when I flew commercial air from Santiago, Chile to Madrid, Spain, we were over the Amazon Basin for more than two (2) hours. I had a window seat, it was early night, and I never saw a single light from any town over the entire stretch. You may not like Brazil President Balsonario, because President Trump likes him, but President Balsonario is probably correct when he says Environmental NGO?s are setting fires.
If you further restrict the graph to only areas that have burnt you will see that >97% of that region has burnt.
LOL
I’m sure if you cherry picked a garden on Bonfire Night in the UK you could probably find a temporary peak, but cherry picking a smaller area of the Amazon Basin does not negate the fact that Amazonian fires have decreased significantly since 2010.
This article explains the real situation and the fact that President Bolsonaro is against deforestation and has tried to stop illegal fires.
https://www.science20.com/robert_walker/nasa_say_the_amazon_is_burning_at_below_average_rates_yet_many_news_stories_say_record_rates-240959
Stokes defense incoming … Nick is redefining the Amazon
Amazonas = a State in Brazil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazonas_(Brazilian_state)
Area: 1,570,745 square KM
Amazon = A large Jungle in Brazil and Peru
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
Area : 5,500,000 square KM
Watch the TROLL deflection take off in all directions … Don’t feed the TROLL
For your information Nick, about two thirds of Peru is Amazonian rainforest. The rest is very largely desert, paramo or puna where forest fires don’t occur, so including those areas are unlikely to introduce any major errors.
A bigger problem is that a considerable part of the northern Amazon rainforest is not included, i. e. eastern Ecuador, southeastern Colombia, southern Venezuela, southern Roraima and most of the three Guyanas. On the other hand southern Mato Grosso, shouldn’t have been included, the natural vegetation there is Cerrado which is naturally fire-prone.
“For your information Nick, about two thirds of Peru is Amazonian rainforest.”
But the stories being slammed here are not about fires in Peru, or the Gran Chaco. They are about fires in the Brazilian rain forest. Amazonas is Brazil’s largest state, and is the heart of that forest. And it is one for which statistics from this source are available, and it was a record.
Deflection 1: The story is about the Brazilian fires.
The story title … “Amazon Fire History Since 2003” … do yous see Brazil in that TROLL?
“The story is about the Brazilian fires.”
I said the stories being slammed here are about fires in the Brazilian rain forest. Sure, this story says, look over there, not many fires. But that is not what the public concern is about.
I quoted the lead sentence of the article Kip cited:
“The hashtag #PrayForAmazonas was the top trending topic in the world on Twitter”
Not #PrayForPeru.
The title and the article details begs to differ but never let the truth get in the way of a TROLL.
No, no, no!!!! You are completely wrong! The Beeb have just blasted the fires all over the place & these are really really really the absolute worst fires ever, ever & ever, FACT!!!! After all, the Beeb would never be partisan & biased in favour of greenalism where all its staff pensions are invested. Just now on the mid-day news, they’ve just said “record fires” yet again!!! Oh & of course the ubiquitous tale of the “carbon store” & “lungs of the world”, etc, etc.
Poe’s law almost applies here
Will liars never cease?
Why do all the Region’s fires take off in July, their Dry Season doesn’t start until August?
The referred article states that records are kept from 2013 which does not seem to be accurate Looks more erratic than trend driven? In any case it takes the hype out of the hyping.
To be exact: Amazonas covers 1.6 mil. km2 while the total Amazon basin covers 7 mil km2.
Correct +100 you spotted the Stokes Defense.
“The RCMP says arson is behind as many as 29 wildfires that scorched large swathes of the Okanagan Valley during the past four years.”
“Mounties believe the fires, which were reported in Naramata, Okanagan Falls, Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton, Summerland and Lake Country, were all deliberately set and all connected.”
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/rcmp-say-arson-behind-29-okanagan-wildfires-over-last-four-years
The stats I read, show that 60%-90% of wildfires are anthropogenic. Some accidental, some arson.
..I agree…. Most wildfires are “man made”, but not from any “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “Climate Disruption” or “Climate Crisis” ! Those are simply the “talking points” for the “Watermelon Left’s” wish to destroy “Western Civilization” so they can replace it with their version of a “Red Utopia”…..IMHO.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, plenty of political points to score by setting fires and then screeching about all the fires.
It is possible to produce a record every time by dialing in the frame of reference enough. I first noticed the phenomenon in sports broadcasting.
We have had a record number of house fires in Calgary: There was one fire this month on our street. Since this is the first fire on our street it is a record! Since our street in in Calgary, we have a record number in Calgary.
Of course I could put the single fire amongst twenty houses, into my computer model and predict an even larger record!
Thus sayeth the left 🙂
The BBC and NY Times, or the Royal Society? Tough choice…not.
https://www.thegwpf.com/royal-society-paper-global-wildfires-are-declining/
A lot of this looks like the green NGOs going ballistic over Bolsonaru, who is almost as much a bete noir to them as Donald Trump, both for saying nasty things about the behavior of afformentioned green NGO’S.
So, whatever happens in Brazil will be highlighted as part of a PR campaign against Bolsonaru, despite any facts on the ground.
I live in Paraguay Its been bone dry for 3 months June July-August before that we had huge floods for 2 months April May nothing unusual. From looking a satellites daily (El Dorado) same pattern was over most of the Amazon in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru. Presume there is a La Nina?
The French say the photos are phonies.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190823-amazon-fires-how-celebrities-are-spreading-disinformation
Maybe this time
Yup. Many not from this year and not from Brazil.
Exact same thing they said when the Wehrmacht strolled through Belgium and did a fish hook on the Maginot Line. Damned good thing BEF refused to listen to them.
How are they going to deliver my packages if they keep having fires all the time?
Like Walmart, they are going to sue Tesla for all those faulty roof solar PV installations that are causing the fires . . . the Amazon has redundancy and good ability to recover from this perturbation. Your Prime membership is OK.
Do you mind? I was eating dinner, and now there’s semi-masticated food all over the computer monitor ☺
Well, your mother told you that if you masticated, your vision would fail !
You win the internet for the day 😂
Fortunately, and as usual, one can come to WUWT and get the whole story on any controversial CAGW story in the press.
Thanks, Les.
I wonder if the president of Brazil reads WUWT. He should.
I see where French President Macron has criticized President Bolsonaro about these fires, and Bolsonaro has replied to the criticism.
It looks like Macron is trying to virtue signal on the back of Brazil and it’s probably not going to work out very well for Macron, especially considering the evidence Les has presented above.
Trump will be in France tomorrow for the G7 meeting. I wonder what Trump has to say about the Amazon fires? I wonder if Macron will ask him that question? 🙂
I wonder if he will make another joke about Greenland being a bargain basement real-estate opportunity. Set their hair on fire the other day! And DJT is continuing to educate people about global politic. How many people were amazed to learn Greenland don’t own itself?
I was surprised to see that 56k people live there
wouldnt be UHI -ing the place a bit would they?
It seems that whenever the mainstream media report anything, they always claim it’s a record. Perhaps they only look back two or three years.
It would seem that the Alarmists get together every week and discuss what normal event they can hype to look new and unusual; the worst ever.
Even their press release gives it away. “Worst ever since 2013”? really, 2013 isn’t very long ago. The worst in the last 6 years isn’t very bad at all now is it
Its not even the worst since 2016. The best (worst?) you can say, is that the fires in the Amazon so far, ar the worst since 2017.
The fires have quadrupled since January! 😉
Jeff
I have long suspected that Liberals have secret catechism meetings where they take turns reading out loud from the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly, and then discussing what the correct vocabulary is to be used with non-believers. I don’t know if the climate alarmists do the same, but I have often been surprised and perplexed over how quickly all of them start using the same newly coined words.
For the benefit of the sarcasm challenged: sarcasm off
For a bit of mirthiness …
https://babylonbee.com/news/americans-relieved-to-find-out-the-amazon-thats-burning-is-just-the-rainforest
Still USA Today should get some kind of climate crusades award for their story linking climate change to massive fires globally without mentioning man made fires in Brazil or Indonesia.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/21/wildfires-july-hottest-month-ever-fires-rage-across-globe/2070418001/
Let’s make it a global recession caused by climate change….
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-eu-beef/finland-urges-eu-to-consider-banning-brazilian-beef-over-amazon-fires-idUSKCN1VD17R?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29
Global warming is most certainly causing fires in the Amazon. The jungle is being burned to replace it with ethanol and bio-diesel crops.
Obviously more research is needed to get the truth from the warmers. Jumping to conclusions to make a point is not only lazy but dishonest.
We are also being told that “20% of the world’s oxygen is produced in the Amazon”, so we are all going to choke to death. Or are we?
My understanding is that the *living* rain forest absorbs CO2 and releases O2. But when those same plants die and decompose, all the carbon in them recombines with O2 as CO2 again. Unless there is somehow a huge mountain of un-decomposed carbon material forming under the Amazon, the rain forest must be roughly O2 neutral.
The satellite (forgot it’s name) that “sees” the CO2 sources on Earth, show a HUGE outpouring of the trace-gas over the Amazon area.
-Which is why it’s images don’t get advertised.
and they spent many millions on the satellite..
coulda just asked saint Greta where it was
or stick her in a tesla rocket and leave her up there to report?
“Unless there is somehow a huge mountain of un-decomposed carbon material forming under the Amazon”
There most definitely is not. In contrast to northern taiga where there are indeed huge amounts of undecomposed litter, in an amazonian rain forest virtually all organic materiel is in the living trees. There is little underbrush and the ground is bare laterite clay or sand (“arena blanca”). Leaf litter is very quickly consumed by invertebrates and bacteria.
It is a bit different in Southeast Asian rainforests where there is often fairly extensive peat deposits. It makes for bigger and more persistent forest fires.
“20% of the world’s oxygen is produced in the Amazon”
Completely irrelevant, since that is 20% of almost nothing. The atmosphere contains 20.95 % O2 and 0.04 % CO2. Land plants can only produce oxygen through photosynthesizing part of those 0.04 % and so are very limited in scope. Those 21 % have built up over >500 million years by organic carbon being sequestered in the ground as shales, coal, oil, gas, peat etc and can only decrease materially through that coal (or other buried un-oxidized elements) being oxidized, which would take at least as long as it took to build up, since most of it is buried miles deep.
Phytoplankton has a larger potential for O2 production since they can use the vastly greater amount of CO2 in the ocean for photosynthesis. They can also potentially draw down atmospheric O2 relatively fast (like in several million years) by dying and sinking to the ocean bottom and form black shale there. This has happened in the past. However this mechanism does not work in the prtesent icehouse climate as the the deep ocean is well oxygenated and all sinking organic material is immediately consumed by deep-sea organisms and turned back into CO2.
“Massive Fake News Campaign Targets Brazil’s Amazon Fires”
https://www.technocracy.news/massive-fake-news-campaign-targets-brazils-amazon-fires/?fbclid=IwAR2-NMTYsL7R6WjWAWrrmAa7kVG7jlnggoOcOgbxbU4DAmKH-hDYq3_XSJo
Reusing old pictures ?….dishonest media ? D’OH !
I realise number of fires vs land affected is an issue, but this latest scare for the first 8 months of the year is said to involve:
The forest fires have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 detected so far by the Brazilian Government’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/wildfires-raging-through-the-amazon-rainforest-at-record-rate/11434866
Setzer has it both ways re rainfall/drought:
(from WaPo) “This central Brazil and south of the Amazon Rainforest region has been undergoing a prolonged drought,” Alberto Setzer, a researcher at Inpe, said in an interview with local media outlets…
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/in-brazil-smoke-from-amazon-forest-fires-engulfs-sao-paulo-baffling-and-alarming-thousands
(from Reuters) There is nothing abnormal about the climate this year or the rainfall in the Amazon region, which is just a little below average,” said INPE researcher Alberto Setzer…
https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/as-the-amazon-burns-brazil-s-president-feels-the-heat-20190821-p52jbz.html
even so, how to explain these numbers for a single month in 217?
29 Sept 2017: Guardian: Brazil’s worst month ever for forest fires blamed on human activity
by Sam Cowie in Rio de Janeiro
The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) has detected 106,000 fires destroying natural vegetation so far this month – the highest number in a single month since records began in 1998, said Alberto Setzer, coordinator of INPE’s fire monitoring satellite program…
The total number of blazes since 1 January was 196,000, and Seltzer expressed concern that – with the dry season continuing in Brazil’s Amazon – 2017 could surpass the worst year on record, 2004, when there were 270,000 fires…
The government of president Michel Temer has been heavily criticised by environmentalists for making deep cuts to the country’s environmental budget…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/28/brazil-forest-fires-deforestation-september-record-amazon
surely some hype can be presumed, in time for the G7 meeting in France?
NASA MODIS data shows that fire the entire Amazon region are average over the record since 2003. 2019 has almost exactly 1/2 the other years ABOVE it, and the other 1/2 below it, in terms of numbers
The emissions are low, but it is early in the fire season. I do not expect a record in emissions, though, by year end.
ZeroHedge has weighed in with an article about the massive number of fires burning in Africa, far more, apparently, than Brazil. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-23/more-wildfires-are-burning-angola-congo-brazil
Almost as if there is a global issue with an increase in wildfires – perhaps due to a changing climate from human greenhouse emissions?
There is no global increase in fires.
Global area burned has been declining since 1900.
There has been a 24% drop in global fire burned since 1998.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-detects-drop-in-global-fires/
Fires in Africa and Madagascar are almost always deliberately set.
Typical cherrypicking by WUWT
If you go to the site mentioned in this article, and look at the Amazonia region rather than the El Benas region, the dial is at 93% and the graph has surpassed all the others for the past decade and a half
https://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#amazonas
Typical ignorance and cherry picking by yourself. I specifically stated in the post, that two regions were high, one at near records currently. The media headlines say “Amazon”, though, don’t they?
24 Aug: Accuweather: 5 things the media won’t tell you about the Amazon fires
By Jesse Ferrell
But there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and there is some good news: It may not be as bad as some in the media are reporting. This is serious stuff! We need to stick to the science. Here are five things that the media (which rarely gets it right on science) aren’t telling you…
The Amazon region isn’t even seeing above-normal fire activity this year.
Yes, there are a lot of fires in South America, some of them in the Amazon rain forests, but how unusual is that? Unfortunately, it’s not unusual at all. The map below shows little change, and on Aug. 15, NASA wrote (LINK):
“As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years.”
UPDATE: NASA changed the text from the quote above from “slightly below” to “close to the” without explanation. See bottom of blog…READ ON
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/five-things-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-the-amazon-fires/520290
Information from your sourced link was just updated: 2019 is, indeed, a record-breaking year in detected fires and fire intensity.
Doveryai, no proveryai. You need to prove this statement.
Why can’t a country develop itself? The eco tourism plan hasn’t worked, socialism has failed the citizens of South America, why cant these people develop thier economy as they see fit? You can bet once the Chinese or Russians get a foot in the door they will develop the wealth and exploit it. Just look at diamond and gold mining in Africa and how the Asians work that. Matto Grasso is a large area of grasslands, Teddy Roosevelt wrote about it more than 75yrs ago as the future of agriculture in Brazil. Let these people develop thier country as they see fit. Maybe that more than anything can help end the Exodus of people moving north to our border.
“Note that the Annual Emissions would have to incorporate fire area, to get the total emissions. Just in case anyone would object that fire numbers are not fire area.”
The graph for emissions states that it uses a linear relationship between counts and emissions. Doesn’t that imply that it specifically doesn’t incorporate fire area?
Aliança da Terra fields firefighters across the southeastern Amazon. This is certainly not a record year. For us, it is below normal. I have a video that I can send you to prove it. The data came from INPE.