Almost every time we have a major wildfire, alarmists blame global warming and claim that such warming will increase the incidence of wildfires. They also often claim that the number of wildfires is increasing. Their argument seems logical at first, higher temperatures and less precipitation will dry out forests making them more susceptible to wildfire.

The graph below compiled by C3Headlines using data from the National Interagency Fire Center in the U.S. and the National Forestry Database in Canada shows that the number of wildfires has decreased dramatically since 1970 and has remained relatively constant since the mid 1980s. The number of acres burned, however, has slightly increased and that may have to do with wildfire fighting decisions.

These numbers suggest some possible conclusions: either global warming does not have much influence on the number of wildfires, in contrast to alarmist claims, or there has not been sufficient warming since 1970 to test the hypothesis. Fire incidence could also reflect the time and severity of cyclic drought.

I’ve also included below the UAH lower tropospheric temperature record since 1979 when satellites began measuring global temperature.

Meanwhile, NASA says “Climate Models Project Increase in U.S. Wildfire Risk” The analysis was based on current fire trends and predicted greenhouse gas emissions. Time will tell if this is just another “garbage in, garbage out” computer simulation.

See also:

Mega-fires in Southwest due to forest mismanagement

Drought in the West

Droughts in the Southwest put in perspective

USDA says carbon dioxide can reverse effects of drought

A press release from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln proclaims “U.S. Drought Monitor shows record-breaking expanse of drought.” It goes on to say “More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said today.” Twelve year history? I suppose the headline is correct for their tiny data set (barely however, 2002 and 2003 were nearly as dry as 2012). The headline is very misleading.

Too bad they didn’t check with the now 112-year record at the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) here to get a longer historical perspective. The graphs below from NCDC show that drought was more widespread and more severe in 1934.

This looks like an example of deliberate cherry-picking of drought history data with the goal of grabbing headlines and perhaps funding.

See more here.

See more about droughts here:

Drought in the West

Droughts in the Southwest put in perspective

El Niño, bristlecone pines, and drought in the Southwest

University of Arizona Scientists Find Evidence of Roman Period Megadrought

Extreme weather makes news.  It is a tenet of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming adherents (CAGWs) that extreme weather events have become and will become ever more common as the planet warms.  However, new research in Europe, based on historical records and tree-rings, covering the period AD 962–2007, shows no trend in extreme weather events. In fact, the researchers found “A fairly uniform distribution of hydroclimatic extremes throughout the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age and Recent Global Warming…”

 The paper is Buntgen, U.et al., 2011. Combined dendro-documentary evidence of Central European hydroclimatic springtime extremes over the last millennium. Quaternary Science Reviews 30: 3947-3959..(Link to abstract, the full paper is behind a pay wall.)

The abstract reads:

A predicted rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and associated effects on the Earth’s climate system likely imply more frequent and severe weather extremes with alternations in hydroclimatic parameters expected to be most critical for ecosystem functioning, agricultural yield, and human health. Evaluating the return period and amplitude of modern climatic extremes in light of pre-industrial natural changes is, however, limited by generally too short instrumental meteorological observations. Here we introduce and analyze 11,873 annually resolved and absolutely dated ring width measurement series from living and historical fir (Abies alba Mill.) trees sampled across France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, which continuously span the AD 962–2007 period. Even though a dominant climatic driver of European fir growth was not found, ring width extremes were evidently triggered by anomalous variations in Central European April–June precipitation. Wet conditions were associated with dynamic low-pressure cells, whereas continental-scale droughts coincided with persistent high-pressure between 35 and 55°N. Documentary evidence independently confirms many of the dendro signals over the past millennium, and further provides insight on causes and consequences of ambient weather conditions related to the reconstructed extremes. A fairly uniform distribution of hydroclimatic extremes throughout the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age and Recent Global Warming may question the common believe that frequency and severity of such events closely relates to climate mean stages. This joint dendro-documentary approach not only allows extreme climate conditions of the industrial era to be placed against the backdrop of natural variations, but also probably helps to constrain climate model simulations over exceptional long timescales.

In a previous post, Media pawns in IPCC extreme weather hype, I present research and graphics that show there have been no upward trends in droughts, wet weather, or hurricanes as the world warmed from the “little ice age.”

In spite of science to the contrary, CAGWs and the IPCC must continue to present their scary stories to secure funding to fight their imagined hobgoblins and gain power.  And such stories sell newspapers.

See also:

Pained Earth’s summer to forget: the rest of the story

Book Review: The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, an IPCC Exposé