{"id":559,"date":"2006-07-12T19:20:41","date_gmt":"2006-07-13T02:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/?p=559"},"modified":"2007-01-25T13:22:22","modified_gmt":"2007-01-25T21:22:22","slug":"drought-forest-fires-and-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2006\/07\/12\/drought-forest-fires-and-global-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought, Forest Fires and Global Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Climate Report<\/a> takes a deliberate and sensible look at the relationship between rising global temperature and frequency of forest fires in the west. Warning to Greenbats — The WCR post contains actual science<\/u> which may offend and confuse you, and we wouldn’t want your little green brains<\/a> exploding<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Fire This Time: More Perspective Needed<\/a><\/p>\n

Some prominent scientists are becoming increasingly restive about the shrill portrayal of global warming science in popular media. The latest round concerned a paper by A. L. Westerling (Scripps Institute of Oceanography) relating an dramatic increase in western forest fires to regional warming and changes in the onset of snowmelt.<\/p>\n

Colorado University\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Roger Pielke Jr., one of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preeminent scholars about how science and society interact, called it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a useful paper that adds to our knowledge and hopefully will stimulate further research on the integrated effects of climate-society-policy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But then, he warned that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At the same time I can envisage the paper being used simply as a caricature in the global warming debate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dGlobal Warming Causes Forest Fires!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut that would be a shame because fire policy is more complex than that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Well, of course, what he feared would happen, did happen. And the resultant headlines are another sad commentary on how cursory reporting on global warming has become, and how little attention is paid to the facts as they stand. Nowhere, for example, did we read Westerling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whether the changes observed in western hydro-climate and wildfire are the result of greenhouse gas-induced global warming or only an unusual natural fluctuation, is presently unclear.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Why so unclear? In large part, because the science isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t straightforward, and three decades is a very short period of climate time.<\/p>\n


\n[more]<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article concludes by comparing temperature anomaly<\/em> with the drought index<\/em>. Using a “scatter plot<\/strong>” which reveals any correlation between temperature and drought. The plot found nothing to indicate correlation between the two. Nothing to see here, just a random scattering of dots — no lines, no circles, no wavy curves and no correlation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, Enviroloons<\/a> and Greenbats<\/a> will undoubtedly come up with a way to connect the dots<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World Climate Report takes a deliberate and sensible look at the relationship between rising global temperature and frequency of forest fires in the west. Warning to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,42,30,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-global-warming","category-science","category-whacko-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}