The Australian wildfires are tragic.
But exploiting them for 'proving' climate change is confirmation bias.
In much of the conversation, there are some true points and a lot of misdirection.
Yes, the fires this year have been *much* larger in the temperate forests of New South Wales (home of Sydney) and Victoria (Melbourne).
But the climate models predict not just temperate forests to see their burnt area increase. They predict almost *all* biomes to see their burnt area increase.
So, if people *only* look at temperate forests this year, show that they burnt more and conclude ‘see, climate change’ it is confirmation bias.
You can’t take a result *after* it has happened and decide only to test the part that fits your theory.
Global warming should increase *all* burnt area in Australia, and it should increase the burnt area in Australia minus NT (avoiding a lot of the tropical savanna) even more.
The fact that burnt area for both Australia and Australia minus NT has declined is inconvenient for the claim that global warming increases the burnt area.
Here I show the likely *annual* burnt area for all of Australia. Of course, the current fire season is not over, but we can reasonably predict the total burnt area by looking at the proportion of the burnt area in the historical record. It turns out that comparing the full season with how much had burnt by January 1, the full season was 119.5% higher.
The Guardian newspaper has been providing the running total amount of burnt area in this fire season (running from June 2019-May 2020. They find the total area burnt for Australia minus Northern Territory is 10.7 million hectares to January 6, 2020. In personal communication, they have told me the NT burnt area is 13.3 million hectares (and that this might be for all of 2019, so possibly too large — but here we'll just use this data point).
The total burnt area is therefore 24 million hectares from June 2019 to about January 6, 2020. That means the likely total for the whole fire season June 1, 2019, to May 31, 2020, is 119.5% of that or 28.6 million hectares.
Now, we can get slightly more updated satellite data, because we can get annual data from GFED (1997-2016) and GWIS (2001-18) They splice nicely.
The data shows two things.
First, climate models would expect the burnt area of Australia to be increasing. It is not.
Second, the current Australian fire season is in terms of area burnt not unprecedented compared to the recent past.
Data: For this fire season from The Guardian.
For 1997-2016 from the Global Fire Emissions Database.
For 2001-18 from the Global Wildlife Information System.
NSW 4.9 million hectares from The Guardian.
Similar sized fires reported from the Government of Western Australia Department of Fire and Emergency Services.
For Victoria.
5 million hectares from the Government of Western Australia Department of Fire and Emergency Services.
Climate models expect increasing burnt area for Australia. The climate model predicts not just temperate forests to see their burnt area increase (0.28%), but almost all other types of areas, too. And these areas are expected to increase *more*. So the burnt area of grass & scrublands will increase by about 1.1%, burnt area of tropical forests 2.5% and sclerophyll woodland 3.3%. The only land type that should experience decreasing burnt area is tropical savanna (in Northern Territory and northern Queensland) by 4.2%.
See exactly when and where your music is played on the radio ??
4 年Johannah Maher?#unitebehindthescience?
Strategic Business Developer & Head of Marketing & Communications at PEAK Wind Group | Sustainability | Innovation | R-Evolution |
4 年When looking at information modelling, taking a few select pieces of data, then trying to prove that they don’t fit your pre-determined model, is rather ignorant of any kind of scientific endeavour. As is the lack of CONTEXT in an experiment - the fact is that looking at data from the big picture proves the increasing of the planet’s temperature - and quite honestly your sterile and somewhat un-scientific review of the Australian fires and the lives this has affected is rather callous. Climate change, or no climate change - the extinction of billions of species is very real due to these fires - koalas have nearly had their habitats wiped out, and sure, “the Australian bush is meant to catch a light and that’s how gum trees rebirth” blah blah blah - but the scale of these fires was unlike any seen in recorded history, as have been the current temperatures recorded across the globe. What have you got to lose by trying to reduce your carbon footprint? Why would you try so hard to disprove something clearly and currently affecting millions of species, including humans? What do you have to gain by this?
Journalist
4 年Please stop undermining the necessary efforts to protect all of our children, you corrupt fake academic corporate flak.?
Safe handling Lithium-Ion Batteries on board Superyachts - Author - Founder - Speaker
4 年So do you call arson climate change today?