Wildfires And Climate Change: Narrative Ever More Detached From Actual Evidence

Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 16 Jun, 2023 | Francis Menton

[MtnClimber]

Here in New York during the past couple of weeks, we had some days where the air was rather incredibly smoky. At times, you could barely see the Empire State Building from where I live (about one mile). The smoke was said to originate from wildfires in the Canadian forests, mostly in Quebec but some farther West.

Getting such a large amount of smoke around here from wildfires in Canada is quite unusual. Indeed, I can’t remember it happening previously, at least to this extent. So something must be different. Could this all be the result of — CLIMATE CHANGE????!!!!

Of course, the media have been filled with articles making the wildfires-to-climate-change link. You probably saw as many of these stories as I did. Here is a small sample:

- From the Washington Post, June 3, 2023: “It’s already a wildfire season for the record books in Canada, with the blistering heat of summer and howling winds of fall still ahead. . . . The rash of blazes, intensified by record heat in many areas, is an ominous sign of the ill effects of climate change, which are not confined to Canada.”

- From Carbon Brief, June 9: “Huge clouds of smoke from the blaze have blown thousands of kilometres down to the eastern US, shrouding cities such as New York and Washington DC in an orange haze and causing levels of toxic air pollution to reach record levels. Scientists have been quick to make the link with climate change. The hot and dry conditions resulting from rising global temperatures are known to make wildfires more extreme. Many US commentators said the fires should act as a “wake-up call” for climate action.”

- From CBS News, June 12: “One month in, Canada is on track to have its most destructive wildfire season in history. Climate change-driven extreme temperatures and drought have created a tinderbox.“

And don’t forget our ever-authoritative Senator Chuck Schumer (quoted in The Hill, June 7):

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the Canadian wildfires “truly unprecedented” in floor remarks Wednesday and warned of the ongoing damage caused by climate change.

The link between wildfires and climate change just seems so intuitively obvious. Who could be so uncouth as to question it? But do real world data show a correlation between climate change and wildfires that could potentially be an indicator of a causal relationship?

My friend Joe D’Aleo (he’s a member of the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council that is the plaintiff in our DC Circuit litigation against EPA) runs a website called ICECAP where, among many other things, he regularly posts various research and data in a section called “Climate Alarmist Claim Fact Checks.” On Monday June 12 he posted this piece, with the title “More on the Recent Smoky Days.” Joe’s piece collects data from actual authoritative sources as to numbers of wildfires and acres burned by year.

There is much interesting data in Joe’s piece, all of it contradicting the simplistic “climate change causes wildfires” narrative. I’ll give a few examples. Here is chart of acres burned by wildfires in the U.S. from 1926 to 2017:

This chart was originally compiled by Danish environmentalist author Bjorn Lomborg. There were two main sources: something called the National Interagency Fire Center for data 1960 to 2017, and the Historical Statistics of the United States for 1926 to 1970. The two data sources overlap for the 10 year period 1960-70. D’Aleo describes how the two sources were combined:

Bjorn Lomborg overlapped National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) annual US fire data with the Historical Statistics of the United States – Colonial Times to 1970. There we have statistics for area burnt since 1926 and up to 1970. Reassuringly, the data for 1960-1970 ‘completely overlap.’ “This is the same data series.” Professor Lomborg said.

While these data may be far from perfect, there is no mistaking that the major trend is a dramatic decline in fires, with most of the decline having taken place from about 1930 to 1960. The recent uptick still leaves the amount of acreage burned annually in the range of one-fifth what it was in the early twentieth century. These data are rather obviously inconsistent with a narrative that wildfires are on a rapidly increasing trend due to warming temperatures from “climate change.”

An even more interesting chart reproduced by D’Aleo originates from a 2014 paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research with the very long title “Spatial and temporal patterns of global burned area in response to anthropogenic and environmental factors: Reconstructing global fire history for the 20th and early 21st centuries.” The authors, Yang, et al., are a group associated with the Canadian Forest Service. They put in a massive research effort to determine the acreage burned by wildfires worldwide from 1900 through 2010. The following chart comes from the Yang, et al., paper, with a separate line showing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 superimposed by Gregory Wrightstone of the CO2 Coalition:

Atmospheric CO2 goes continuously up; acreage burned in wildfires goes continuously down. How can that negative correlation be explained? Yang, et al., have many theories as to causation, some of them contradictory. But this one may be important:

CO2 can suppress fire occurrence by retaining more water in the soil [Nelson et al., 2004] through reducing transpiration [Ainsworth and Rogers, 2007].

In any event, whatever the underlying causal mechanisms (which may be complex), there is no denying that the simplistic “climate change causes increased wildfires” narrative cannot be right.

The remarkable thing about this is the extent to which the Washington Post, CBS News, Chuck Schumer, and dozens more of like thinkers just repeat a narrative that is clearly wrong, and see no need to ever look at actual data to try to understand what is going on.

[MtnClimber]

I am afraid science and reasoning are wasted on the greenie crowd.

[Sacajaweau]

It was the location...usually, they're further west...and of course the wind. Not a damn thing to do with climate change.

Have they investigated the source of the fire? Canada does "0" to prevent their fires.

[Sacajaweau]

They blame most of the fires on lightening. But they do nothing to prevent these fires. They need breaks at the least especially near populated areas.

And maybe....just maybe...do a little more logging. Canada needs to start CCC camps like the USA did.

[mac_truck]

Have they investigated the source of the fire?

The wildfires in Alberta were started by firefighters attempting a "controlled" burn...not sure who/what caused the Quebec wildfires.

[Sacajaweau]

Just read...lightening...

[Aevery_Freeman]

True Science is rarely practiced.

With government funding, scientific endeavors now must follow the narrative and therefore has become leftist Dogma.

Just like the news, only Science that promotes the narrative is allowed.

[drwoof]

A firefighting magazine carried an article a couple of years back. It looked at wildfires in the US over he past 20 years. It found that while the number of fires had decreased, their size and duration had increased. This, they concluded, was due primarily to two factors: an increased focus on crew safety, and a new philosophy about just letting them burn to reduce fuel, etc. Oh, and yes, they also mentioned ‘climate change’, with no explanation as to why.

[Aevery_Freeman]

It would seem that a certain country with a history of using balloons as weapons could have started fires simultaneously as they floated over remote Canadian air space.

What a silly notion - couldn't happen in Biden's America..

[bert]

The primary reason for fires in California is that it is a natural tinder box.

When there is the climatic norm period of draught, the world becomes tinder

[Alas Babylon!]

[ThePatriotsFlag]

Substitute “weather” for “climate change” and the world starts to get real again.

[Socon-Econ]

I recall FR posts a few yeas ago about arsonists bring observed in the Pacific Northwest. One major conflagration near Portland was caused by kids playing with fireworks.

[Chicory]

There was a post linked here (on FR) that had a video showing several Quebec fires starting almost simultaneously under clear skies.

[Chicory]

Here’s a link: https://the-pipeline.org/were-the-canadian-fires-deliberately-set/

[butlerweave]

Did they arrest a bunch of Arsonists ?

[woodbutcher1963]

That was posted on Twitter multiple times.
It is a edited time lapse sequence that fails to show the thunder storm front that had just passed.

The fires in Quebec started primarily from lightning after a dryer and warmer than typical spring.
I live in NH. We have had a warmer spring and less rain than we usually have.
Especially in April when it usually rains all the time.

There were even forest fires a month ago in Nova Scotia.
East of Maine.
The reason it got so little attention is that the smoke blows out to sea.

The only reason the Quebec fires received so much attention was because the jet stream blew it over NYC.

[MtnClimber]

I heard speculation that the Canadian fires could be arson. Fires started in numerous locations at the same time.

[Georgia Girl 2]

All of these recent Canadian fires started at the same time. 🤔

[The Great RJ]

Why are Canadian forests burning out of control and not in the US where there are very similar dry conditions? Perhaps Trudeau and his semi communist government have failed to fund adequate resources to control wildfires or have given in to the greens and not managed the forests to mitigate the fire danger. Of course the climate apocalypse cultists will bring out the old climate change is the cause claptrap without looking at any evidence or the root cause…bad management of forests by the Trudeau government.