From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
The Seattle’s Times ClimateLab writers have done it again.
Another highly deceptive and error-filled climate story in the ST. One predicting more than a doubling of wildfires over western Washington and Oregon by mid-century.
The trouble is that this story is based on a highly problematic paper published in February in JGR Biogeosciences (see below). A paper that is missing the key element of Westside wildfires and makes predictions that are unsupported and highly exaggerated.
Before anyone suggests I should not comment on this work, let me note that I am doing research on EXACTLY this topic. I have read all the relevant papers. The authors of this paper cite several of my previous papers on the topic.
The Key Control of Westside Fires Was Ignored
Both this article and the Seattle Times article ignore the central fact about major wildfires occurring west of the Cascade Crest.
Let me explain.
Westside fires are infrequent for a reason: the region west of the Cascade crest is generally too moist to burn. Precipitation is abundant west of the crest (see below) and for most of the year cool, moist marine air from off the Pacific (whose temperature is about 50F) floods over western Washington and Oregon.
Moisture vegetation and ground surfaces, as well as cool/moist air. Wildfires don’t have a chance and are thus rare.
But there is an atmospheric “trick” that can make Westside wildfires possible: strong easterly (from the east) winds. Winds that are generally dry and warm, and capable of pushing the moist/cool marine air out to sea.
Virtually all major Westside fires are associated with strong easterly winds.
The air starts relatively dry over eastern Washington and Oregon. As it descends the western slopes of the Cascades and coastal mountains, it is warmed by compression, causing relative humidity to plummet.
The warm, dry air associated with powerful downslope winds can rapidly dry surface fuels, no matter how moist they were days or weeks before. The strong winds can also start fires, by damaging electrical infrastructure. among other ways.
I have looked at every one of the Westside fires of the past 120 years– all of them were associated with powerful easterly winds.
Examples include the Yacolt Burn near Vancouver, WA in 1902, the Tillamook Fires of the 1930s, and the 2020 fires over western Oregon (there are more). Being a little warmer or drier the days before would have made little difference to these fires: the easterly winds were the key.
Tillamook Burn, Clatsop County Oregon
So if you want to know how Westside fires will change over the next century, you MUST determine how the easterly winds will change.
Unfortunately, the JGR paper does not examine this issue at all. The Seattle Times article ignores the issue as well.
You probably are asking yourself: Will strong easterly winds strengthen or weaken under global warming?
I have examined this question with high-resolution regional climate models (and published the results in the peer-reviewed literature). It appears easterly winds will WEAKEN, which would reduce Westside fires. The Seattle Times article doesn’t provide that critical information.
But the problem with the Seattle Times article and paper it cites does not end there.
The paper assumes the same distribution and frequency of fire starts as today and then uses the output from global climate models to see how the fires would change as the earth warms.
Unfortunately, they used a highly unrealistic and aggressive global warming scenario (RCP 8.5) that greatly exaggerates any global warming impacts.
The global model also is far too coarse to get the local meteorology correct. For example, THERE ARE NO CASCADES in the simulation at all.
Finally, let me note there are many other problems with the paper and even more in the Seattle Times story.
The ClimateLab series in the Seattle Times is pushing incorrect and hyped climate information. The reporters do not evaluate the validity of the exaggerated claims they report. This is not quality journalism and misinforms citizens who need accurate information about climate change.
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Any paper using RCP8.5 should have a disclaimer that it is panic p@rn.
RCP8.5 sounds like CMIP5, which is seriously outdated, didn´t CMIP6 found a CO2 sensitivity difference of about 25% for comparable models after improving the cloud parameters? (they might still be wrong, but CMIP5 was “more wrong”)
And last week WUWT had a post about simpson´s pnas article showing that models fail to reproduce the water vapor
“””we present a concerning discrepancy between observed and model-based historical hydroclimate trends””” (https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.coecis.cornell.edu/dist/f/423/files/2023/12/simpson23pnas.pdf)
The only thing concerning here is how little researcher or journalists are hold to make their homeworks..
I generated a first version of the following graph soon after discovering the University of Melbourne website giving some results of the CMIP6 model runs (around 2020/2021 maybe ?).
URL 1 : https://greenhousegases.science.unimelb.edu.au/#!/ghg?mode=downloads
Note that the CMIP5 equivalents can be found on Malte Meinshausen’s page on the PIK (Potsdam Institute) website.
URL 2 : https://www.pik-potsdam.de/~mmalte/rcps/
I updated the graph in August last year to include “Historical” atmospheric CO2 concentrations up to 2022, and still find it a good way of demonstrating “not just crazy (RCP 8.5), but bat-shit crazy (SSP5-8.5)” options.
Follow-up post.
Here is a version limited to the main “less unrealistic” scenarios, which notably excludes all of the *6.0, *7.0 and *8.5 options (along with SSP1-1.9).
Note the much reduced range on the Y-axis.
Any paper using RCP8.5 should automatically be refused publication since even the IPCC think RCP8.5 is highly unlikely.
From personal correspondence with Dr Elizabeth Kendon:
Any paper using RCP 8.5 as the business as usual scenario is committing scientific fraud. Observations have invalidated that projection which is likely impossible.
They might have the Rachael Maddow defense, that they have so little credibility no one could rely on their work and be defrauded.
Isabella Breda, an Environment reporter with the Seattle Times, does seem to be the usual run-of-the-mill eco-loon with none of the research skills a reporter really should have. I found it amusing that the Seattle Times put this as her by-line: “SeattleTimes staff reporter Isabella Breda covers the environment.” What, all of it?
She is thinly spread. 😉
Sounds like she stores carbon dioxide within her skull.
All of the environment IS Climate change, to her, so she sees her duty to create panic p@rn and maybe someone will DO something, like sacrifice, while she suffers from worry, but no meaningful sacrifices made.
This phenomenon is well-known in Southern California- the Santa Ana winds. Nothing new there…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds
Yeah. Wind play a major role of the Big Blowup in 1910 a state to the east.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5444731.pdf
One of he first things that caught my eye was the author blaming the C.M.&St.P. RR for the fires. While the blob of red east of St Maries would be consistent with coal cinders causing fires, there are a number major burn areas not downwind of any RR.
Then again, I’ve never forgiven the USFS for the fiasco of the 2003 Cedar fire, where they shut attempts to put the fire out in its earliest stages.
One of my pet peeves is blaming the Paradise Camp Fire of several years ago (where I grew up, and Anthony lived (lives?)) on PG&E power lines to the tune of a billion dollars, IIRC. It was so dry that anything could have set it off, and if PG&E lines really did cause that, how much was due to the PUC telling PG&E to cut their budget elsewhere to pay for all the rooftop solar power? I sure don’t know the details, but anything involving the PUC sets off alarms.
CalPUC also had a bit of reckoning with SDG&E with respect to tree trimming around power lines. Several fire started due to trees reaching the power lines. OTOH, as Cliff pointed out a number of time over the last few years, that cutting power during periods of hot dry winds, it would be a good idea to de-energize the lines with a lot of brush.
BTW, the 2003 Cedar was caused by a hunter setting a signal fire. The SD County Sheriffs Department helicopter had rescued the hunter in question and told the USFS that there was a small fire that needed to be put. The USFS refused to respond and also told the Sheriffs NOT to send a water bucket equipped copter to extinguish the fire.
It’s probably also one of the reasons that the Milwaukee Road electrified this section of line not many years later.
What a joy it is to us Seattleites that a full-bore weather science professor is willing and able to rebut the fear-and-dreary stories in the Seattle Times. Not that the Times editors will blush and apologize, nor will the reporters who dish out the doom stories, BUT someone has shined the light of reason on the skulduggery of a press that insists on overdramatizing every last piece of information they select to dish out to the public. Thanks again, Dr. Mass, keep those ‘news’ purveyors honest!
My question is – who’s listening?
It would seem that the Seattle Times business plan is to excite readers, not inform them.
Yellow journalism at its best.
Any paper based on RCP8.5 is a statement of fraud and should carry criminal penalties.
Very nice Cliff.
“Simulated Future Shifts in Wildfire Regimes’
Replace the word “simulated” with “created out of nothing for the purpose of scaring the ignorant” and the entire “research” publication is easily explained. in a world where kids can identify as cats, anyone can identify as one or more of a multiple of genders and a demented, corrupt, imbecile can identify as leader of the free world, the standards of science illustrated in the publication cited are exactly what we should expect.
Unfortunately most mainstream media writers have been trained in advocacy journalism, which specifically omits factual reporting.
Thank you Cliff!