This is what climate change looks like in the Mid and South-West
Joe Romm at Climate Progress writes “If a tree burns down in a globally-warmed forest but the media doesn’t report why, does it make a sound?” as he notes the singular lack of mention of climate change and it’s role in wildfires devestating the Mid-West.
Over at Scholars and Rogues, Samuel Smith has the context the MSM is missing.
If you’d like to better understand the causes of the explosion of wildfires in the summer of 2012, here’s a quick set of links to get you caught up.
ӢWill 2012 be the summer when Colorado finally burns to the ground?: Back in March we were talking about the specific conditions that have, in fact, caused these runaway fires. And hoping for rain that never arrived.
”¢Vanishing act: drought and unseasonable warmth sends Colorado’s snowpack into freefall: Analysis from Tom Yulsman of the University of Colorado Center for Environmental Journalism addressing the drought and this winter’s extremely low snowpack.
”¢Why is Colorado on fire? Climate effects aren’t always as obvious as the weather…: Some important detail on how climate disruption was very good for the pine beetle.
”¢Tell pols to step up: Time to invest in fixing infrastructure woes: By the way, wouldn’t it be nice if our insanely brave and dedicated firefighters had better tools to work with?
”¢NYTimes Green blog: burning Colorado forests may not regenerate: If you’re looking for a silver lining and aren’t too picky about where you find it, this might be the last forest fires these areas ever see.None of this puts out a fire or saves a home, but there’s value in understanding those pictures you’re seeing on the news in context (because corporate news outlets aren’t likely to help their viewers to the deeper truths underlying the images). Perhaps if we do a better job of grasping why the summer of 2012 is playing out this way, then future summers might be less this way….
As Romm notes, we’ve only warmed about a degree and a half Fahrenheit in the past century and the median expectation is for a warming of five times that much in the next 100 years. Things are going to get much worse. Wouldn’t it be, y’know, doing their job if the mainstream media said a little about how denialism is burning down people’s homes?
Climate change denier and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin has had to evacuate her Colorado Springs home. Still no mention of climate change in her reports – meanwhile her colleagues are too busy blaming environmentalists and Obama.
Reuters
Climate change will make wildfires in the West, like those now raging in parts of Colorado and New Mexico, more frequent over the next 30 years, researchers reported on Tuesday.
More broadly, almost all of North America and most of Europe will see an increase in wildfires by the year 2100, the scientists wrote in the journal Ecosphere, a publication of the Ecological Society of America.
The U.S. Southwest – Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – is the fastest-warming region of the United States, and this warming trend will worsen droughts, alter growing seasons and increase wildfire risk, the non-profit research organization Climate Central reported.
On Tuesday, 20 large wildfires were burning in eight Western states, from Idaho and Wyoming to California and Arizona, according to the U.S. Forest Service. A map of active fires is online at activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/ .
Using satellite-based fire records and 16 different climate-change models, an international team of researchers found that while wildfires will increase in many temperate zones due to rising temperatures, fire risk may actually decrease around the equator, especially in tropical rainforests, because of increased rainfall.
“In the long run, we found what most fear – increasing fire activity across large areas of the planet,” said lead author Max Moritz of the University of California-Berkeley.
More
And not to long from now the bat-shit-crazy party will blame the tree so they all need to be removed for the safety of Amerikas citizens. Then following with ronnie-ray-gunns — trees pollute.
Heat wave: 1,000+ records fall in US in a week
AP foreign, Wednesday June 27 2012
SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press= Hundreds of heat-related records recently have fallen across the United States.
In the past week, 1,011 records have been broken around the country, including 251 new daily high temperature records on Tuesday.
The heat is creating consequences ranging from the catastrophic to the comical, from wildfires in the Rocky Mountains to frying bacon on an Oklahoma sidewalk.
If forecasts hold, more records could fall in the coming days in the central and western parts of the country.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver says the current heat wave “is bad now by our current definition,” but that this will be “far more common in the years ahead.”
No matter where you are this week, the objective is the same: stay cool.
MSNBC
‘Overall pattern looks like it is going to stick around well into July,’ meteorologist says
Excessive heat warnings were issued for parts of the central U.S. on Thursday with temperatures expected to soar to 100 degrees and more — a day after some areas saw 110 degrees and even hotter.
The warnings were issued for parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
“If precautions are not taken … persons outside could suffer from heat exhaustion and potentially heat stroke. Heat-related illness can be life-threatening,†the Weather Service warned.
Parts of Colorado and Kansas saw temperatures at or above 110 degrees on Wednesday.
Hill City, Kan., a farming community of about 1,500 people in the northwest part of the state, has been the hottest place in the nation for several days. On Wednesday, it reached 115 degrees — breaking the town’s June 27 record by 8 degrees.
Weather.com said much of the Northeast would see temperatures in the 90s in a heat wave impacting more than 50 million people in 27 states.
On Wednesday, temperatures soared above 100 degrees in many Central Plains states and meteorologists expect little relief over the next couple of weeks.
“This overall pattern looks like it is going to stick around well into July,” Alex Sosnowski, an expert senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com, said.
more
Reuters, By Deborah Zabarenko and Laura Zuckerman, June 28
Scorching heat, high winds and bone-dry conditions are fueling catastrophic wildfires in the U.S. West that offer a preview of the kind of disasters that human-caused climate change could bring, a trio of scientists said on Thursday.
“What we’re seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like,” Princeton University’s Michael Oppenheimer said during a telephone press briefing. “It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster … This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future.”