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The fires in California have worsened 4.5 times in 40 years

The study, published online in the journal Environmental Research Letters, shows that the drought of 2012-2016 nearly quadrupled the area severely burned, compared to the relatively cool drought of 1987-1992. This is surely a result of the man-made climate crisis

Image: This map includes the probability of wildfires in California's Northern Coast Mountains as published in a UC DAVIS study, with September 2020 wildfire extents shown for comparison.
Image: This map includes the probability of wildfires in California's Northern Coast Mountains as published in a UC DAVIS study, with September 2020 wildfire extents shown for comparison.

The frequency and severity of wildfires on the north coast of California has increased by 10 percent per decade since 1984 (which is about 46% over the entire period. This is according to a study from the University of California, Davis, which links climate trends with the widespread worsening of fires such as wildfires.

Research, published online in the journal  Environmental Research Letters, shows that the drought of 2012-2016 nearly quadrupled the area severely burned, compared to the relatively cool drought of 1987-1992.

"The severity of wildfires has increased over the past four decades," said lead author Johan Huang, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis. "We discovered that the fires were much larger and more severe in dry and hot years compared to other climate conditions."

The study area includes the coastal plain and the mountains surrounded by the Central Valley lowlands to the east and extending north to the Klamath Mountains. The national monument (nature reserve) of the Snow Mountains in Rissa lies in the southeastern part of this area. This area and several areas described in the study were affected by wildfires in recent months during the heat wave and the largest natural fire season on record in California.

"Most of the fires happening now are being exacerbated by this heat wave," said Jin Yufang, an associate professor in the University of Davis' Department of Land, Air and Water and co-author of the paper. "Our research shows how prolonged dry conditions lead to extreme wildfire behaviors, especially when they coincide with warmer temperatures."

The hot and dry difference

The scientists used a machine learning model that allows near real-time prediction of the likelihood of different levels of fire severity. The model shows that during dry years, the northwestern and southern parts of the study area are at particularly high risk of high-severity fires, although the entire region is susceptible.

According to the data from the past, about 36% of all fires between 1984 and 2017 in the mapped area were of high severity, while in dry years the severity of the fire is much higher. However, during the wet years, only about 20% of the fires were considered high severity, while the rest were moderate or low severity. Higher temperature further increased the severity of the fires.

The study highlights the importance of careful land-use planning and forest management in the country's most vulnerable areas to reduce the risk of large and severe wildfires as the climate becomes drier and warmer.

According to Jin, "These are things we can control in the short term. "Prioritizing high-risk areas is something more practical to reduce the damage."

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3 תגובות

  1. 1) "If the summer had not been extended by two and a half months in this area, even the measures taken would have been sufficient" - I thought you brought statistics of 40 years... have the summers been extended in all the last 40 years? A single event does not prove the rule
    2) The corona crisis caused a very sharp decrease in carbon emissions, which means that there are higher oxygen concentrations in the atmosphere, which can increase the likelihood of fires, all over the world.
    3) If I were a tycoon I wouldn't bother commenting on such a site, I would be vacationing on a yacht right now and enjoying life, so I really don't sympathize with tycoons, on the other hand, governments that plan to take billions of dollars for false promises that they will solve the problems, it's completely ridiculous in my eyes, what Even in recent years, all the big innovations have come from the tycoons, such as Elon Musk with Tesla and Speedix
    4) Everyone cares about the future and everyone wants a green and flourishing earth with pleasant weather and zero forest fires, the only difference as I see it, is that the "right" claims that the way there is not through green energy and "green" government subsidies as the "left" " Pushing (AOC), but rather by scientific innovations such as SNMR, private companies such as Tesla or other projects in the energy field, which are supposed to bring real news and a paradigm shift, and in order for this to happen, a functioning economy is needed, and that means using (temporary) in polluting energies.
    4) Accusing the "climate deniers" of being guilty of changing the name of a phenomenon they did not invent, is such a ridiculous idea that only academics are able to believe it, of course, without evidence. Who invented the name and who changed it? Do you have names, dates? documents? I guess not, so it's a shame you come out with such accusations.
    5) China, which is the most polluting country according to UN data, was not a signatory to the Paris Convention at all, while western countries that pollute much less were signatories to the convention, so it turned out that the economies of western countries were suffocated while the Chinese grew stronger, and of course the Chinese did not invest Nothing in green energy beyond a blatant copy of Tesla vehicles. In Australia, for example, there is already a lively discussion about withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, signed by the left's favorite globalist Marxist, Hussein Osama.
    6)

  2. Respondent, if the summer had not been extended by two and a half months in this area, the measures taken would have been sufficient. When the climate warms, there are two schools of thought. the damages. Apparently the people who identify with the tycoons have a hard time accepting long time spans and global operations. You can't put things like this in a quarterly report, but they affect everyone.
    Regarding the name, the Americans like to be politically correct and if someone doesn't like a name they change it to something more neutral - this is a victory for the climate deniers who drove the media systems crazy until they changed the name from a clear name - global warming, to an unclear name - climate change. The direction of those climate changes is clear, at least for those who don't want to hide behind the PC.

  3. Don't be too quick to jump to conclusions.
    The government in California has taken several "green" steps in recent years, within this framework, there were the following changes:
    1) It is forbidden to prune trees and bushes (for example, in order to keep trees away from high voltage lines)
    2) It is forbidden to cut down trees, not even dead trees
    3) It is forbidden to carry out "controlled fires" of wild bushes (in order to create a buffer between residential areas and the forest
    4) Instead of renovating the old electricity infrastructure (in California it is almost a century old, by the way), the local government invested the budget in panels and wind turbines, which of course sit in wooded natural areas)

    In short, you don't have to jump right in with the "climate changes" (it used to be "global warming... I wonder what happened to this phrase......). It is very possible that the serious fires are related to the fact that California is run by "greens" who have taken a very extreme position in recent years.

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