This week a new study was published in the Nature journal Ecology and Evolution titled “Increasing frequency and intensity of the most extreme wildfires on Earth.” The study claims that wildfires are on the increase due to climate change. Predictably, the mainstream media jumped all over this with headlines similar to what you see above from CBS News. However, the paper is untrue as it is self-falsifying because it doesn’t even use the minimum 30 year period required for a climatic data comparison. Further, the claims are not supported by science in other sources of data, and other publications.
First, the study itself says it only uses 21 years worth of satellite data, saying:
Climate change is exacerbating wildfire conditions, but evidence is lacking for global trends in extreme fire activity itself. Here we identify energetically extreme wildfire events by calculating daily clusters of summed fire radiative power using 21 years of satellite data…
A minimum of 30 years of data is needed before it can be called a climate comparison. This has been defined for decades. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines climate as “…the average weather conditions for a particular location and over a long period of time.” To create a climate record, 30 years of weather data is averaged to create a “normal” climate expectation for a location or region.
Second, we can turn to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Who has examined the issue of fire weather as it pertains to increasing wildfire risk. They conclude that had has not even emerged as a signal from climate change and it’s not likely to emerge in the 21st century.
The IPCC also identifies when it expects that the “emergence” of a signal of climate change will be detectable for various impact “climate impact drivers.” Note that table below, with “fire weather” highlighted in yellow. Most people will likely be surprised by the amount of white cells in the table — indicating a lack of signal emergence, even out to 2100. For “fire weather” a signal does not emerge through 2100. It isn’t even seen in the present.
Table 12.12 | on Page 90 – Chapter 12 of the UN IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Emergence of Climate Impact Drivers (CIDs) in time periods, as assessed in this section. The color corresponds to the confidence of the region with the highest confidence: white colors indicate where evidence of a climate change signal is lacking or the signal is not present, leading to overall low confidence of an emerging signal.
Clearly, the IPCC does not see any connection whatsoever between climate and wildfires, nor does it expect a connection in the coming decades.
Next, we can examine other satellite data, such as this chart below that combines recent satellite data with historical data.
Clearly the trend is sharply down for the area burned. However the study cited by CBS News and others also makes the claim that the intensity of fires is on the increase. There is a simple explanation for this; increased fuel load makes bigger fires.
Increasing forest biomass, also known as “fuel load,” has been prevalent due to forest management issues. Fuel loads also figure greatly in wildfire potential, intensity, and spread.
For example, in the Western United States in 1990, the spotted owl was listed as endangered. As a result, the western logging industry and the associated forest management practices essentially evaporated. As seen in the figure below, data suggests the protected owl habitat has directly caused an increase in forest fuel load (and increased acreage burned) in the absence of effective forest management post 1990.
Fire science tells us increasing fuel load directly correlates with greater fire intensity and rate of spread, plus increasing the acreage burned. Fuel loads can increase fire intensity, as more fuel available to burn means more energy is released as heat. A 2013 study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire found that fire intensity increased with fuel loading. In the Figure 2 below, fire burned area increased due to the protectionism of the spotted owl and other forest species in the Western United States.
Unsurprisingly, the study lists the Western United States as the worst are for “most extreme wildfires” in its Figure 1, seen below circled in red:
So, while their data does support that some of the most extreme wildfires have occurred in the Western United States during the last 21 years, this is a clear case of correlation is not causation. Attempting to blame climate change simply because fire intensity has increased instead of the problem with fuel loads getting bigger in that area is the fatal mistake the researchers made in addition to the 21 years of data falling short of the 30 years needed to make a climate comparison.
Of course, the mainstream media does not have reporters with the science education needed to even question this. But, as illustrated in this article, you don’t have to be a forest scientist to be able to find this contrary data. It simply appears that the mainstream media didn’t bother to look because they prefer to push a scary narrative about climate change rather than do the job they have been charged with. So much for “journalistic integrity.”
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From the WayBack Machine since it was scrubbed by the Climate Cult from
https://www.fs.fed.us/research/sustain/docs/indicators/indicator-316.pdf
And just as importantly fire fighting or fire prevention works in the moist part of the season. So rather than many lightening induced fires that clear fuel we get large hot fires when people inadvertently light them.
It also seems that a disproportionate fraction of arsonists are climate zealots.
In the western USA, ~84% of wildland fires are caused by something humans do, but not necessarily purposefully. About 10% by lighting. Some are of unknown cause. Not much left for arsonists.
Should have gone into the memory hole
The graph was removed from the USDA website because it is inaccurate and contains incongruent data sources. See here:
https://youtu.be/D4iqqn103Do?si=pWW3fD9EnYM3a_UJ
The climate scammers didn’t LIKE the data.. so they removed it.
That is what you are really saying !
Fortunately the data exists in many other places.
The linked video addresses the same graph you’ve posted. You should watch it and address what I’ve actually shown.
A bunch of AGW cultists trying to “adjust” data they don’t like…. AGAIN.
No-one is impressed.
Specifically which points do you object to and why? The source is the US Forest Service.
You might think the USFS is dependable- it’s not- it’s now taken over by climate whack jobs- and wokesters of all persuasions. Forestry in the USFS is much less than it used to be.
Sorry.. It is not a “bunch”… it is just one anonymous nobody !
Even less impressed.
On this clown’s only other video he tries to justify the missing hot spot.
That is how DESPERATE he is. It is you AJ??
And of course, news items don’t help your comrade’s excuses.
Yes, the fires on unprotected forest land include the intentional burns. The newspaper article is citing the same figures discussed in the USFS paper.
fires on
unprotectedunmanaged forest landPetty attempt to justify DENYING the facts.
AlanJ, the problem I see with your claim is that the data you wish to discard, per the video, is the data from about 1960 to the present, after the Interagency Fire Center was established. The data that is far more concerning is the data from 1926 or so, to 1960. This information was compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and apparently had different standards than that compiled by the USFS afterwards. In looking through the rather brief footnotes in the Census records, I did not find any of the issues that were discussed in the video. That prior data appears to be the best that could be obtained from the sources available. The notes did indicate that certain forested states were entirely omitted which would have resulted in an undercount.
Following your train of though and adjusting the data post 1960 only seems to diminish your argument.
Maybe I missed it, but if the USFS felt that the prior graph was incorrect, where is the graph that they must have created to show their best estimate as to what the burn history actually was???
That is not correct, I’m saying the data prior to 1960 includes vast swaths of area burned by prescribed fires, and cannot be used to evaluate wildfire trends in the US. There is not way to adjust this data are remove the acreage burned by prescribed fires from it, because the Forest Service did not distinguish between true wildfires and woods burning during this period.
The USFS used to have this same graphic on their website, but removed it for the above-mentioned reasons. I don’t think we have historic data to indicate burn area from wildfire in the US prior to the mid-20th century.
So we have no factual basis for any historical record of past wild fires? The fire scar study shows that fires were more prevalent in the past, the Census data that I cited was broken down we “protected” and “unprotected” land areas with no mention of prescribed burns or intentional burns. And the anecdotal evidence supports the graph you are discarding.Your whole argument appears to be based on wishful thinking or grasping for straws; an inappropriate way to discuss a topic in a scientific manner. If you have no hard evidence it’s time to move on to serious ideas!!!
The burn area data in the graph presented by bnice do not contain valid data on burn area by wildfires in the early half of the 20th century. If you have some other source of data, including reconstructions, showing a similar pattern for the entire contiguous US, please share that. But the USFS data do not indicate the pattern bnice and others claim it does.
No, you are the one who made the claim. Prove it with data, not with unproven speculation. The graph you reject is the best we have even if it may be imperfect, but you provide nothing.. The fire scar study I cited is a smaller sample that supports my position, which is far more evidence than you are providing, which is basically none.
Have a good life; we’ve exhausted any usefulness for further discussion, with you offering no facts.
As validation for this graph, please review the graph in the “Results” portion of this paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2015.0168
This graph covers the fire history of the Western U.S. from 1600 to 2000 and fully buttresses the validity of the graph posted by bnice2000. After reviewing the arguments in the video posted by AlanJ, which ran counter to so much other data and anecdotal evidence from the logs of some of the early explores, early settlers, and even the account of Mark Twain in the 1880s, it would appear that the graph posted by bnice2000 should suffice as a responsible fire history.
Also, who would argue with the premise that the fuel load in the past was much larger than the fuel loads since prior to major settlement in the 1850s. That’s the real issue is it not.
The paper you’ve cited concerns only a small portion of the Western US, as you can see from the second graph in my video (which bnice has also reposted), most of the early-mid 20th century spike in burned area is not from the western US, but from a handful of regions in the southeastern US:
This is where the practice of woods burning was prolific, and most of this burn area represents illicit prescribed fires counted by the USFS as wildfire.
The US Forest Service says it does not.
I researched this issue, and those who claimed the graph was invalid were questioning the information included before the Interagengy Fire Center was establish. The earlier data came from U.S. Census Bureau records and was accurate to the last digit.
The graph is also supported be studies relying on a survey of fire scars going back to 1600, and on anecdotal evidence from early West Coast explorers and even Mark Twain in his visit to Tacoma in the 1880s. The graph is as good as it could possibly be.
As shown unequivocally in the video above, with primary sources provided, prior to the mid-20th century, any burn considered to be started illegally was counted as a wildfire and included in the burned area estimates. This included vast swaths of land burned intentionally under controlled conditions. This changed in the mid-century, and thus the data before and after are completely incongruous and can’t be directly compared.
It doesn’t matter if the estimates were perfectly accurate (and they were not), they were estimates of a completely different thing.
Deliberate IGNORANCE of the much warmer “dust bowl” period.
How much lower can you get..
This makes no sense. So fires start by lightning or “legal” means were not included in the totals. Would that not make the acres burned number for the early years much, maybe much, much higher which supports the contention that acres burned correlates very close to fuel load, which amazingly enough is what my forest ptotection professor lectured in about 1965.
Also, supports the obvious conclusion that the CO2 fertilization effect is simply adding to the problem.
In the early century most woods burning practices were outlawed – the approach to forest fires was suppression and prevention. Thus any illicit burning was included in the burned area total, which is why the figures in the early half of the century are so high and why they taper off as practices changed.
The bottom line is that there is no proof that there are more wildfires due to human emissions of “carbon pollution”.
In the video, the author stated that up to 1970 or so, they only had a single report that was the only source of burned area data.
Do you think a single source is sufficient or not?
A single tree was sufficient for Mickey Mann !!
Shhh!
That’s where I was heading lol
It probably wasn’t a single tree- but point taken- insufficient and poor quality data manipulated to prove a predetermined objective
That is the single source you all are uncritically relying on for the graph, so you tell me.
I never said any such thing
So please now answer my question, do you think a single source is sufficient or not?
If you believe that the graph bnice posted accurately reflects historic area burned by wildfires then you unequivocally are relying on a single source for the pre-1960s data. And in this case the single source contains significant uncertainties in the early years (not to mention that it is fundamentally incompatible with more recent years of data).
It depends on the source. In this case, the USFS has said that the early annual summary reports contain large uncertainties, as they relied on approximate burn area estimates from local agencies rather than official surveys.
Who said I believed?
So you agree with all points made in the video?
There you go again putting words into other people’s mouths.
Now answer my question, “Do you think a single source is sufficient or not?”.
Yes or no?
This is like asking if a single sandwich is enough food or not. You need to provide more context to the question.
Do you think the early USFS annual summary reports provide accurate burn area estimates, in contradiction to the USFS?
You’re a waste of time
Yes.. Totally. FAKE arguments from the get go.
Just mindless empty blether.
“incongruent data sources”
like Mickey Mann’s hockey stick?
Since 1950, the population of America has doubled. That alone explains some of the problem. More people camping, hunting, driving through forests- a lot more cargo on trains, along with poorer mgt. of the forests. Not many wildfires in the intensely managed forests down in Dixie.
But mainstream media are not there to give facts, they are there to disrupt and divide. They are owned by the elite cabal. If you look hard enough, you can see the strings.
The left often calls that a conspiracy theory- yet, it happens to be true.
But the Green NGOs intervening to prevent any wildlands management cannot be at fault, as they are so well meaning? Good intentions and flowery rhetoric rule!
Here in Wokeachusetts, the greens are trying hard to stop all forestry- starting with almost a million acres of publicly owned forests- later, they’ll get to private forest. And the state policy people are right on it- they recently published Climate Smart Forestry bullshit- which calls for much less forestry work. Meanwhile, this state imports something like 98% of the wood needed for the economy. And the governor is whining about a housing shortage happening because of the vast number of illegal immigrants coming here. We’ll have to import wood from thousands of miles away.
The only locations where no/little mgt. should occur are on officially designated Wilderness Areas.
Very nice.
“This week a new study was published in the Nature journal Ecology and Evolution titled “Increasing frequency and intensity of the most extreme wildfires on Earth.” The study claims that wildfires are on the increase due to climate change.”
Although the mainstream media is lazy and does not do it’s job what about the Nature journal Ecology and Evolution? Do they not peer review the things they publish? If this was peer reviewed we need to know by whom. It appears to me that Ecology and Evolution suck and their peer reviewers suck.
Just reading the quote does not indicate the study claiming wildfires are on the increase.
What the quote defines is those fires classified as most extreme are show to happen more frequently and with greater intensity.
That can happen with even a declining number of fires.
Now having read the paper….
That the paper claims it is due to climate change is not proven.
All this is is an attempt to analyze satellite data.
As pointed out in many comments, it ignores too many factors based on the way the conclusions are written. Actually a poor report in that regard.
It also makes claims that are proven untrue in many places. Actually a poor report in that regard.
It appears to me that Ecology and Evolution suck and their peer reviewers (if there were any actual reviews) also suck.
they’re escalating- not just extreme- but MOST extreme- of course anyone who watches Tony Heller videos know it’s all BS
It’s POSSIBLE that the trivial climate change is CONTRIBUTING slightly to SOME problems- but when “journalists” blame whatever the problem is entirely to climate change, they’re only proving how ignorant they are.
Big Foot has not been observed in western Montana in over 25 years. It is imperative that all logging be halted and billion-dollar studies commence immediately so a rescue plan can be formulated.
You should always include these graphics when discussing whether wildfires are increasing:
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=821aad2160e4e8d6&sxsrf=ADLYWIIQeZZ5YJssCTaSLm0Y_UtuJLZtxw:1719441456965&q=us+wildfires+1926-2017&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0Aa4sjWe7Rqy32pFwRj0UkWd8nbOJfsBGGB5IQQO6L3J5MIFhvnvU242yFxzEEp3BfRFWcyM5BvpTgNzM3vKj4sEjS6haKlrdzONTHhmt-ed0BDutOfD1NtrEadKQJY0kkrXclIUNRVP0ehqCu__lp1243DJ2Uniu4_KjBzx4cZwuNHlMMAGibLeRiFGo8nwiJYCKRW8lD7G-kjM3YLhhsCD1e5OQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-nYTKqvqGAxXJIEQIHdeRCn8QtKgLegQICRAB&biw=1215&bih=515&dpr=1.13
These young authors use RCP8.5. That = frau∆.
Because of the “Great Smoke Pall” that visited my home town, and a much larger area, the first large fire known to me was the Chinchage Fire of 1950. The Great Fire of 1910, I missed. It was of my grandparents’ time.
This isn’t a requirement, it’s a convention. You can sometimes identify long term trends in less than 30-years of data, and you sometimes can’t identify a long term trend even with 30-years of data. It depends on the characteristics of the dataset like the signal to noise ratio. The authors are presenting results that seem to be quite robust based on the 21 years of satellite data used.
Or you can pull a trend out of your arse.
As seems to be an increasing trend these days.
Particularly in anything to do with climate topics.
But nothing to do with human CO2
All to do with greenie agendas stopping proper land clearing and burn-off, etc.
Global fires from NASA data since 2000….. Trend DOWN
Global Fire reconstruction since 1900
Trend very much DOWN
US Forest fire acreage.
looks just random.. no real trend
The claim made in the paper is about the frequency and intensity of the most extreme wildfire events, not wildfires overall. It’s important to know what it is that you’re trying to rebut before launching into your counterpoints.
focusing on a limited part of a population doesn’t allow for broad conclusions
Extreme fires come from fuel load.
TOTALLY a greenie agenda caused issue !!
I do know what I am arguing against
A blethering twit !
If you are going to throw it into the mix of all the other climate catastrophe hit pieces, it needs to conform to the definitions used by the climate cabal.
climate change should only be determined based on a millennium of accurate data
21 years data? that’s only weather variation- hardly climate change worthy- regardless of how robust the data is
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2024/04/17/co2-worsens-wildfires-helping-plants-grow
An important new paper is mentioned in this article that demonstrates that the CO2 fertilization effect is several times more critical in increasing forest fires, due to the increase in fuel load, than is the small amount of warming that the same increase in CO2 causes.
Great for our food supply and if we reestablish a forest products industry in our country we could easily deal with the fuel load issue and replace a portion of the $40 billion of imports with domestically produced wood products. A win/win if there ever was one!!!
America is- even with all the enviros and green whack jobs- still considered as “the wood basket of the world”- only it could be much more so- several times more so. The forests would be improved- hundreds of thousands of new jobs- and many secondary industries could be rebuilt, like furniture, plywood, etc. There is a movement to build tall buildings with wood- but the enviros often fight against it. One guy (Bill Moomaw), who was an IPCC author many years ago, has argued that it would be better to use cement and steel and lock up the forests. He’s a very significant figure here in ff and forestry hating Wokeachusetts.
According to the blog author “The study claims that wildfires are on the increase due to climate change.” which is surprising given that the abstract states that “the total area burned on Earth may be declining …” and further on in the introduction the paper goes on to state that “While the notion of increasingly dangerous wildfires pervades the media, such trends have not been systematically shown”
What the paper is actually saying that the most extreme events being defined as
greater than the 99.99th percentile have increased by 2.2 times in the last 21 years.
Which as they have stated several times is a very different thing from claiming that wildfires are on the increase.
“99.99th percentile have increased by 2.2 times in the last 21 years.”
And the greenie assault on forest clearing is absolutely to blame. !
What’s the point of focusing on that last hundredth percentile? How about any other explanations of why that hundredth percentile is increasing fires? The brilliant scientists can’t think of any other?
USA records show that since 1900, wildfires are 90% lower today. Many started deliberately.
Rather OT..
But I just saw this temperature map for 23rd June in Germany on NTZ.
Sorry, but I just don’t understand.
NEGATIVE overnight temperatures in summer ! WT* !!!
Where I am it is very rare that it goes negative overnight even in winter.
WHY are these clowns worried about a degree or so of warming ! ?????
And destroying their whole economy in a vain, stupid attempt to stop it.
They are as loony as the Canadians !!
Can someone PLEASE EXPLAIN !
Seems I misinterpreted the numbers.. me bad!
The negative numbers are departure from average” temperatures for this time of year.
But still 15-17C….. call me un-impressed as a summer temperature
The Germans historically latch on to extreme idealism. (since the word “extreme” is key to this thread)
Story Tip (maybe?)
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/meteotsunami-lake-michigan-holland
What the “H” is a “Meteotsunami”?
Did they invent the term just so they could use the word “extreme” in the story?
PS It was only 2 foot waves. Not unusual for storms on the Great Lakes.
Speaking of devastating fires … (From Wikipedia’s article on The Great Chicago Fire” in 1871.)
Mods,
When I copy/pasted that I forgot that over 3 links would put a comment into moderation for approval.
Sorry for any extra work I caused.
Trump said they should rake the forests. Of course that’s a simplistic way of saying they should manage the forests. Well managed (private) forests in the American west have a much smaller fire problem than poorly managed publicly owned forests.
This 2024 study in Nature Communications provides a potential explanation if indeed there is an increase in severity over recent decades. Fire suppression makes wildfires more severe and accentuates impacts of climate change and fuel accumulation | Nature Communications
It’s a modelling study, so the usual caveats (“all models are wrong, some are useful”), but in this case seems to be a reasonable application.
Note also the difference in tone between the title and the abstract:
Fire suppression is the primary management response to wildfires in many areas globally. By removing less-extreme wildfires, this approach ensures that remaining wildfires burn under more extreme conditions. Here, we term this the “suppression bias” and use a simulation model to highlight how this bias fundamentally impacts wildfire activity, independent of fuel accumulation and climate change. We illustrate how attempting to suppress all wildfires necessarily means that fires will burn with more severe and less diverse ecological impacts, with burned area increasing at faster rates than expected from fuel accumulation or climate change. Over a human lifespan, the modeled impacts of the suppression bias exceed those from fuel accumulation or climate change alone, suggesting that suppression may exert a significant and underappreciated influence on patterns of fire globally. Managing wildfires to safely burn under low and moderate conditions is thus a critical tool to address the growing wildfire crisis.