It's Starting

I don't understand that. The burned area is already clear. After they put out a fire, how much additional area should they clear?

I've seen the estimate that about 10% of the surface of California would naturally burn every year. So the preventative cleanup is the entire state every 10 years, which nobody is going to pay for. Fires are cheaper.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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Reply to
John Larkin
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I see, if it's that much area then never mind.

Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

It rains here in the winter, and it's dry in the summer. A lot of the fires are grasslands, green in the spring and brown in late summer.

If people would let the fires burn in the forests, or clean them up, the bigger trees would survive the trash burning off. Some actually need it. The massive firestorms kill everything.

Homeowners need to keep their land clear of flammables (as we have to do at our cabin) and not build from flammables like wood shake roofs. Our cabin has a steel roof, concrete blocks on the first floor, and we are required to pick up the pine needles and trim lower branches all over the property.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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Reply to
John Larkin

We certainly see a lot of fuel-reduction burns around Sydney in winter and spring. I'd be surprise if the Calfornian fire-control people didn't do the same thing, but in the US people with money have more politcal influence, and they are more interested in keeping taxes low than in preventing natura l disasters.

Sounds sensible. How enthusiastically are these requirements enforced.

Does anybody come out and look at your pine needles and lower branches ever y year? That needs somebody being paid to do it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

ote:

ote:

them , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warming up faster than the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Sweden has ha d forest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of threshold has been crossed.

y

osphere. It is wiser to look at population declines and extinction events a mong the flora and fauna to get an idea of the disruption. Obviously someth ing is going on when we see lifeforms we know have been stabilized for mill ions of years start to disappear. Means of this and that and everything els e be damned.

al transitions - if you want the exact history you can get from ice core da ta.

s.

iled 20 millions years ago means that the biosphere is going to have to fin d a new adaption, which might not accomodate our current agricultural pract ices, but isn't going to create any kind of mass extinction event, though i t might produce a crash in the human population level - there are a lot mor e of us around than there used to be.

It's not that simple. 1) the current climate transition is occurring much f ast than in past history, making adaptation impossible, except for simples stuff like bacteria, and 2) the planet doesn't have any natural wilderness areas left, most wildlife is pretty much boxed into a niche, and if that ni che goes, they go.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

ote:

te:

more of them , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warming up faster than the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Sweden has had forest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of thr eshold has been crossed.

are unprecedented, not just in Sweden but all across Eurasia and into Alas ka and Canada. "The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the Natio nal Academy of Sciences, found that the boreal forests have not burned at t oday?s high rates for at least the past 10,000 years,..."

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ate-16278

ires contribute huge amounts of GHG emissions and heat absorbing soot depos its in the worst possible of places.

so they don't do enough photosynthesis to capture all that much CO2.

rbon budget, since these forests represent nearly 10 percent of the planet ?s land surface and contain more than 30 percent of the carbon that is stored on land, in plants and soils." The fires free up this stored car bon. The winds carry the soot to the snow and ice farther north.

th than Sweden to allow it to cover 10% of the planet's land surface, and a lot further south still to allow it to represent 30% of the plant-stored c arbon.

itude as Anchorage, Alaska. What's north of that in the US and Canada inclu des a lot of permafrost. Sweden can have forests that far north because of the Gulf Stream.

n permafrost, so that "30%" may be a bogus statistic.

ave very good working knowledge of these parameters:

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soil or in permafrost. You completely missed the point.

is covered with little pools of melt water at this time of the year. Soot i sn't going to make much difference to its albedo.

ines of constant latitude. Gray and brown absorb more heat than green and b lue. The planet warms as a result. Then there's the atmospheric heat infusi on pulsing of the actual fire itself.

am, which doesn't reliably travel along lines of constant latitude.

o matter at any scale larger than the extent of the fire itself is a comica l missapprehension.

y don't mess up the local meteorology. Sweden's forests aren't anything lik e as extensive.

snow on the ground and on the sea surface during arctic summers these days, and bare water reflects a great deal less solar radiation than ice or snow .

s attempts to explain every last warning about anthropgenic global warming as more of the same.

This sounds like an estimate of carbon storage to me "In

te forests,

rbon storage is there that's relevant?

Forest fires do become significant when they became large scale. The burnin g of Australian scrubland was enough to alter the monsoons resulting in the massive amounts of wasteland there.

Looks like we'll be dealing with much more than fires in the near future, i t will be firestorms, and that's a really lethal piece of work.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

The net C02 balance of any forest is exactly zero, unless you have some fossilization mechanism. All the wood will burn or decay eventually, releasing ist absorbed carbon back to the environment.

Best regards, Piotr

Reply to
Piotr Wyderski

e:

of them , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warming up fast er than the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Sweden has had forest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of threshol d has been crossed.

lly

,

ht

.
r

biosphere. It is wiser to look at population declines and extinction events among the flora and fauna to get an idea of the disruption. Obviously some thing is going on when we see lifeforms we know have been stabilized for mi llions of years start to disappear. Means of this and that and everything e lse be damned.

cial transitions - if you want the exact history you can get from ice core data.

tes.

vailed 20 millions years ago means that the biosphere is going to have to f ind a new adaption, which might not accomodate our current agricultural pra ctices, but isn't going to create any kind of mass extinction event, though it might produce a crash in the human population level - there are a lot m ore of us around than there used to be.

fast than in past history, making adaptation impossible, except for simples stuff like bacteria, and 2) the planet doesn't have any natural wilderness areas left, most wildlife is pretty much boxed into a niche, and if that n iche goes, they go.

Adaption works on within-population variation, and the warming is essential ly moving warmer climate further away from the equator, which means that si mple migration will work for most species. The distribution within each pol uation that is better adapted to warmer condictions won't move as far, and benefit from being able to exploit a new and essentially empty niche.

The warming may be fast, but it isn't going to be as quick in coming on as the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.

You are being as fatuously alarmist as John Larkin is fatuously denialist.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

:

rote:

e more of them , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warming up faster than the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Swed en has had forest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of t hreshold has been crossed.

at are unprecedented, not just in Sweden but all across Eurasia and into Al aska and Canada. "The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the Nat ional Academy of Sciences, found that the boreal forests have not burned at today?s high rates for at least the past 10,000 years,..."

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-rate-16278

fires contribute huge amounts of GHG emissions and heat absorbing soot dep osits in the worst possible of places.

n so they don't do enough photosynthesis to capture all that much CO2.

carbon budget, since these forests represent nearly 10 percent of the plane t?s land surface and contain more than 30 percent of the carbon tha t is stored on land, in plants and soils." The fires free up this stored ca rbon. The winds carry the soot to the snow and ice farther north.

outh than Sweden to allow it to cover 10% of the planet's land surface, and a lot further south still to allow it to represent 30% of the plant-stored carbon.

atitude as Anchorage, Alaska. What's north of that in the US and Canada inc ludes a lot of permafrost. Sweden can have forests that far north because o f the Gulf Stream.

in permafrost, so that "30%" may be a bogus statistic.

have very good working knowledge of these parameters:

formatting link

he soil or in permafrost. You completely missed the point.

e is covered with little pools of melt water at this time of the year. Soot isn't going to make much difference to its albedo.

lines of constant latitude. Gray and brown absorb more heat than green and blue. The planet warms as a result. Then there's the atmospheric heat infu sion pulsing of the actual fire itself.

ream, which doesn't reliably travel along lines of constant latitude.

to matter at any scale larger than the extent of the fire itself is a comi cal missapprehension.

hey don't mess up the local meteorology. Sweden's forests aren't anything l ike as extensive.

d snow on the ground and on the sea surface during arctic summers these day s, and bare water reflects a great deal less solar radiation than ice or sn ow.

ins attempts to explain every last warning about anthropgenic global warmin g as more of the same.

rate forests,

carbon storage is there that's relevant?

Proto-peat in permafrost. There's a lot of frozen, somewhat degraded vegeta tion there. There's also the subterranean fungi under the forest. some of i t is symbiotic with the trees which we can see and measure.

ing of Australian scrubland was enough to alter the monsoons resulting in t he massive amounts of wasteland there.

And your link to plausible evidence supporting this implausible claim? The monsoons in the Sahara area seem to have come (about ten thousand years ag o) and gone (about six thousand years ago) without anybody burning off the forests.

Big forest fires are dramatic, but they don't sterilise the ground - green shoots start appearing after a couple of weeks, and the underground fungi a re barely affected.

it will be firestorms, and that's a really lethal piece of work.

Australia does have dramatic bush-fires, but - big or small - they all seem to have much the same immediate (everything you can see looks black and ch arred) and long term (regrowth) effects.

Claiming that they could morph into some unspecified "fire-storm" is pure C hicken Little alarmism.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

d spring. I'd be surprise if the Calfornian fire-control people didn't do t he same thing, but in the US people with money have more politcal influence , and they are more interested in keeping taxes low than in preventing natu ral disasters.

Doing fuel reduction burns in California is harder to do than the area arou nd Sydney. The terrain is a lot more rugged. This also makes fighting f ires more difficult. To do fuel reduction burns might be a couple of order s of magnitude more expensive.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

te:

p

be more of them , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warmin g up faster than the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Sw eden has had forest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of threshold has been crossed.

that are unprecedented, not just in Sweden but all across Eurasia and into Alaska and Canada. "The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the N ational Academy of Sciences, found that the boreal forests have not burned at today?s high rates for at least the past 10,000 years,..."

formatting link
ed-rate-16278

he fires contribute huge amounts of GHG emissions and heat absorbing soot d eposits in the worst possible of places.

sun so they don't do enough photosynthesis to capture all that much CO2.

s carbon budget, since these forests represent nearly 10 percent of the pla net?s land surface and contain more than 30 percent of the carbon t hat is stored on land, in plants and soils." The fires free up this stored carbon. The winds carry the soot to the snow and ice farther north.

south than Sweden to allow it to cover 10% of the planet's land surface, a nd a lot further south still to allow it to represent 30% of the plant-stor ed carbon.

latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. What's north of that in the US and Canada i ncludes a lot of permafrost. Sweden can have forests that far north because of the Gulf Stream.

ed in permafrost, so that "30%" may be a bogus statistic.

ct have very good working knowledge of these parameters:

formatting link

the soil or in permafrost. You completely missed the point.

ive is covered with little pools of melt water at this time of the year. So ot isn't going to make much difference to its albedo.

ng lines of constant latitude. Gray and brown absorb more heat than green a nd blue. The planet warms as a result. Then there's the atmospheric heat in fusion pulsing of the actual fire itself.

stream, which doesn't reliably travel along lines of constant latitude.

re to matter at any scale larger than the extent of the fire itself is a co mical missapprehension.

they don't mess up the local meteorology. Sweden's forests aren't anything like as extensive.

and snow on the ground and on the sea surface during arctic summers these d ays, and bare water reflects a great deal less solar radiation than ice or snow.

rkins attempts to explain every last warning about anthropgenic global warm ing as more of the same.

perate forests,

f carbon storage is there that's relevant?

tation there. There's also the subterranean fungi under the forest. some of it is symbiotic with the trees which we can see and measure.

I think you're talking about areas north of the boreal forests.

rning of Australian scrubland was enough to alter the monsoons resulting in the massive amounts of wasteland there.

e monsoons in the Sahara area seem to have come (about ten thousand years ago) and gone (about six thousand years ago) without anybody burning off th e forests.

n shoots start appearing after a couple of weeks, and the underground fungi are barely affected.

e, it will be firestorms, and that's a really lethal piece of work.

em to have much the same immediate (everything you can see looks black and charred) and long term (regrowth) effects.

Chicken Little alarmism.

Maybe you should read up on the recent fires around Athens, Greece. Those w ere firestorms.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

You don't just light them off every year?

Rick C.

Reply to
gnuarm.deletethisbit

and spring. I'd be surprise if the Calfornian fire-control people didn't do the same thing, but in the US people with money have more politcal influen ce, and they are more interested in keeping taxes low than in preventing na tural disasters.

ound Sydney. The terrain is a lot more rugged. This also makes fighting fires more difficult. To do fuel reduction burns might be a couple of ord ers of magnitude more expensive.

Which area around Sydney? The highest mountain in California is 4,344 m abo ve sea level, and the highest mountain in NSW (and Australia) only gets to

2,228 m above sea level. Our high points have had longer to erode, but ther e's a lot of land back of Sydney that's not easily accessible, hence timber

-covered and prone to bush-fires. If it were easily accessible it would be farmed or grazed.

I'd put more money on cheapskate local administration rather than more diff icult topgraphy.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

:

rote:

emperate forests,

of carbon storage is there that's relevant?

getation there. There's also the subterranean fungi under the forest. some of it is symbiotic with the trees which we can see and measure.

Wrong.

formatting link

burning of Australian scrubland was enough to alter the monsoons resulting in the massive amounts of wasteland there.

The monsoons in the Sahara area seem to have come (about ten thousand year s ago) and gone (about six thousand years ago) without anybody burning off the forests.

een shoots start appearing after a couple of weeks, and the underground fun gi are barely affected.

ure, it will be firestorms, and that's a really lethal piece of work.

seem to have much the same immediate (everything you can see looks black an d charred) and long term (regrowth) effects.

re Chicken Little alarmism.

were firestorms.

formatting link

Reads like the consequences of a serious Australian bush fire

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It killed more people than Australian bush-fires usually manage, but Austra lia is much less densely populated than Greece, and has been having big bus h-fires for rather longer.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

For those worried about the situation in Sweden, it is now raining heavily and the forest fires are under control.

The temperature in Scandinavia and Northern Russia has been about +30 C for weeks now and hence a lot of wildfires have started. The interesting observation that the _number_ of wildfires in Sweden as well as in Finland is about the same, but the area destroyed in each wildfire is many times larger in Sweden than in Finland. In Finland, the fire detection is quicker, there are more forest roads to help limiting the fire as well as for driving fire trucks into the forest. In Sweden, much of the forests are owned by the state or paper and pulp companies, while in Finland a lot of forest is owned by small private forest owners. Then the forest is renewed after logging, much larger areas are renewed at a time in Sweden and the trees are all about the same age, and the forest fire takes out large areas.

Thus, the forest fires in Sweden will cause larger financial losses.

Now, the situation with Russia is interesting. There are huge old forests, some of which have never been logged. There have been large forrest fires in previous years and apparently they do not even try to take out the fires but let it burn, until it starts to rain. There has been thick smoke coming from Russia to Finland, causing all kind of problems in Finland. In the worst case, the forest fires in Russia could spread over to Finland over the 1300 km long border. This summer some small forest fires were just on the Arctic Circle on the Russian side, but fortunately, the were stopped at the border. Some border crossings was closed for a while, due to the fire.

Reply to
upsidedown

I gather there has also been a lot of centralisation of fire detection and fire fighting in Sweden, making it harder to deal with fires in more remote areas. I don't know how Finland compares in this way. (In Norway, the forests are somewhat smaller and there are more people and roads in the forested areas, so it's easier to get to the fires.)

Reply to
David Brown

In Finland, there are still Volunteer Fire Brigades, so a lot men can be mobilized when needed.

This summer (as of today) there have been already 1200 forest fire monitoring flights, while during whole last summer, only 400 flights were flown. These flights are handled mostly by local flight clubs. The expenses are paid, but the pilots are not. Pilots needs to have a small number of flight hours each year to maintain their licenses, so this is a win-win situation. However, this year, they got much more flight hours than expected :-).

Reply to
upsidedown

If I didn't believe in crap, I'd not be paying so much for sewer service.

Reply to
whit3rd

Not the full picture, of course; gray and brown also radiate more heat (than white, for instance). Soot atop ice means faster melt rate, which is bad for water supplies that depend on snowpack during summers.

Reply to
whit3rd

em , particularly close to the Arctic Circle, which is warming up faster th an the rest of the world, but is isn't the first time that Sweden has had f orest fires, and it's certainly not evidence that any kind of threshold has been crossed.

al

ay?s

Gee, over what period did humans harvest trees and other forest "products " for building material and fuel?

When did we stop?

Mark L. Fergerson

Reply to
alien8752

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