US Person, as you might have deduced by now lives in Oregon, which is on fire in the greatest conflagration the state has ever witnessed. [photo] Ten percent of the state's population have been told to evacuate or prepare to evacuate as the fires come closer to the Portland metropolitan area. More than 900,000 acres have burned in Oregon in just 72 hours. California has six of the state's largest fires on record burning right now including the largest fire on record, the August Complex. What is not being widely reported, midst the human interest stories of evacuation, property loss, and emotional turmoil is this fact: these fires are intensified by climatic conditions. A climate change drought has primed the forests to burn producing a "compound disaster".
Climate scientists have been warning for a least two decades that climate change would produce compound disasters, in which more than one extreme event takes place simultaneously across varied geography. Except these events were not expected for several more decades under conditions of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Surprise! The future is now, and
its not pretty: poisonous orange skies full of combustion particulates are more ominous than scenic. [photo] Portland looks more like Delhi or Beijing on a bad day. [photo below] These large fires will be come more commonplace as studies show the region warming up and drying out. A recent study shows California's usual fall fire season having more days of extreme fire conditions that have doubled since the 1980s. One fire expert opined, “I think it is fair to say that these fires are unprecedented for the speed at which they moved. We’ve never seen so many fires cover so many acres in such little time.” The fire spread has been aided by unprecedented, strong offshore winds that usually arrive later in the fall. But because the Rockies experienced record cold temperatures, including snow early this year, the air pressure gradient with the still warm West Coast was enhanced. These conditions produced the strong, offshore winds driving the fires. Climate scientists think these unusual conditions are the result of global warming altering accustomed weather patterns.
The scope of the current fires exceed the notable fire event of 1910, referred to as the "Big Blowup". Burning was then extensive in Montana
and Idaho, covering 3 million acres, killing 85 people including 78
firefighters. Because of the Big Blowup, the Forest Service began fire
suppression activities, which continue to this day. Critics of this
policy say it is counterproductive because fuel builds up over time in
forests not thinned by occasional fires. Some observers say California
is "built to burn" with developments sandwiched into canyon filled with dry timber and grasses, traditionally dry fall weather, and strong onshore winds known in the south as
"Santa Ana". California has experienced a five-fold increase in its annual burned acreage. The state has had four straight years of conflagrations in both the southern and northern parts of the state where as before the would be a break of several years between large fire outbreaks. Undoubtedly, the new normal is not good. At a charity event in the noughts, worthless US Person asked a leading, local meteorologist why his nightly weather segment did not mention the effects of global warming he replied, "Referring to global warming might offend some of our viewers." Well, it is damn hard to ignore the apocalypse happening outside our windows now.
He can still see the ball....