6 thoughts on “The Bush Fires Down Under”

  1. Tim Blair blasted Australia’s land policy. In the name of “protecting wildlife” they made it wildly illegal to do all the common sense things man has always done to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Of course the predictable result was catastrophic wildfires and dead wildlife.

    As for the Forbes article, it says:

    First, and crucially, they conclude: “The impact of anthropogenic climate change on fire weather is emerging above natural variability.” Human-caused climate change affects “fire weather” which they define as “periods with a high likelihood of fire due to a combination of high temperatures, low humidity, low rainfall and often high winds.”

    I would dispute that global warming theory predicts low humidity. Heck, the whole water-vapor feedback model that even makes global warming theory somewhat plausible requires increased water vapor. If global warming caused decreased humidity then there wouldn’t be global warming, since water vapor swamps CO2.

    Second, low rainfall is also not an accurate prediction, because increased warmth should mean increased evaporation and increased rainfall.

    Third, a warmer planet will have about the same temperature difference, but with the tropical warmth spread further toward the poles, thus, on average, producing less of the strong spatial temperature differences that drive high winds.

    If you have to get three out of four basic premises backwards to make a case, you probably don’t have a case.

    1. Willis Eschenbach, over at WUWT, analyzed the rainfall data for Australia over the past 100 years. The recent 50 years were wetter than the first 50. But a couple of hot, dry years can take the fuel produced by a number of wet ones, and make for the tinderbox they have experienced.

      After 28 years of seeing the same thing, repeatedly, in Southern California, it’s no surprise to me.

  2. Roger Pielke seems to be a straight-shooter when it comes to climate science. I suppose, then, that automatically makes him a target by the catastrophic-AGW mob.

  3. If you have to resort to child abuse to generate “feelz” (Greta) you don’t have much of case.
    The problem in Australia is that we signed up to reduce our CO2 emissions and one of the ways was to reduce/stop land clearing. Our farmers got screwed and are prevented from proper land management like clearing scrubby regrowth on previously cleared land. This in addition to green nutcases in positions of power who declare “World Heritage Areas” and National and State Parks which people are prevented from entering for any activity, let alone sensible things like logging. These areas used to have fire trails and firebreaks through them and frequent controlled burn offs in the cooler months but they are now overgrown. The authorities have gone so far as to bulldoze earth berms and large rocks are placed at former entrances to prevent vehicular entry. In past times the motorcycle dirtbike and 4WD communitywould use these trails and remove trees fallen across them etc. You aren’t even allowed to shoot feral hogs in these areas.

Comments are closed.