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Freegrass

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #850 on: July 31, 2019, 12:45:52 AM »
I'm wondering if these peat fires are the first triggers of rapid climate change. Will these fires trigger or speed up other feedback loops? I presume they will... These fires are really bad news for the planet... The first domino has fallen...
« Last Edit: July 31, 2019, 01:00:48 PM by Freegrass »
90% of the world is religious, but somehow "love thy neighbour" became "fuck thy neighbours", if they don't agree with your point of view.

WTF happened?

jai mitchell

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #851 on: July 31, 2019, 01:17:10 AM »
I'm wondering if these peat fires are the first triggers of rapid climate change. Will these fires trigger or speed up other feedback loops? I presume they will, so these fires are really bad news for the planet... The first domino has fallen...

indeed.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05457-1

Wildfire as a major driver of recent permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands
Carolyn M. Gibson et. al.

Abstract
Permafrost vulnerability to climate change may be underestimated unless effects of wildfire are considered. Here we assess impacts of wildfire on soil thermal regime and rate of thermokarst bog expansion resulting from complete permafrost thaw in western Canadian permafrost peatlands. Effects of wildfire on permafrost peatlands last for 30 years and include a warmer and deeper active layer, and spatial expansion of continuously thawed soil layers (taliks). These impacts on the soil thermal regime are associated with a tripled rate of thermokarst bog expansion along permafrost edges. Our results suggest that wildfire is directly responsible for 2200 ± 1500 km2 (95% CI) of thermokarst bog development in the study region over the last 30 years, representing ~25% of all thermokarst bog expansion during this period. With increasing fire frequency under a warming climate, this study emphasizes the need to consider wildfires when projecting future circumpolar permafrost thaw.


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jai mitchell

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #852 on: July 31, 2019, 01:24:12 AM »
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-declares-emergency-over-huge-wildfires-in-siberia/a-49817454

Russia declares emergency over huge wildfires in Siberia
Raging wildfires have swallowed up an area bigger that the state of Belgium across Siberia, with smoke enveloping cities. Observers and activists slammed the Russian government for not responding earlier.


An area of 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) was engulfed by forest fires in remote regions of Russia on Monday.  In comparison, the total surface of the nation of Belgium is 3.07 million hectares.
With fires raging for days, immense clouds of smoke reached large population centers, including Russia's third biggest city, Novosibirsk. Authorities declared emergencies in several regions.
"The smoke is horrible," pensioner Raisa Brovkina told state television after being hospitalized in Novosibirsk.
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Sam

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #853 on: July 31, 2019, 02:26:01 AM »
Tor...reading the peat fire links, is it just me or does every new story always contain info that makes things worse then they appeared to be? I can't remember the last time I read an article about AGW where I said "Boy that's good".

Unfortunately, that is a reflection of the consistent underestimation of the severity of the problem, the exclusion of serious and important feedback loops from the projections; combined with the response of leaders and people all over the world failing to recognize the severity or even the reality of the problems we face.

Only once we come to grips with reality AND do meaningful things to respond will there be any chance for stories that make any of us feel like “Boy that’s good.” 

But even then, we have almost certainly pushed the world over the edge and into the transition to a new dramatically different state. It is likely under those circumstances that we will not reach a place where we can honestly say “Boy that’s good” in any living human’s lifetime. 

More importantly and more fundamentally, this is not about feelings and emotions. Those certainly come into play for each of us. The problem though is a very very real tangible problem. Changing how we feel to being more positive will not only do nothing to resolve any of the issues we now face, doing so will distract us from the urgent needs.

Sam

Archimid

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #854 on: July 31, 2019, 05:22:52 AM »
Quote
Only once we come to grips with reality AND do meaningful things to respond will there be any chance for stories that make any of us feel like “Boy that’s good.”

There are reasons to say "Boy that's good". Go to the Tesla thread or the renewables thread. There is movement in the right direction and it is accelerating. It is far too slow and we will need geoengineering, but there is hope for all of us yet. There is a lot we can do in a decade, even if under fire from climate change.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

vox_mundi

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #855 on: July 31, 2019, 03:41:59 PM »
Siberian Smoke Heading Toward U.S. and Canada
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-siberian-canada.html

... "The smoke looks to be arriving late tonight (July 30), but definitely by July 31, 2019," said Colin Seftor, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The date on the image refers to west of the dateline (the Siberian portion of the image.)

« Last Edit: July 31, 2019, 06:25:55 PM by vox_mundi »
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Shared Humanity

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #856 on: July 31, 2019, 06:03:57 PM »
Observers and activists slammed the Russian government for not responding earlier.


And short of a declaration of emergency, exactly what should be expected of the Russian government. These fires are in remote areas and, for the most part, cannot be fought.

We are going to see similar complaints in the U.S. from wealthy communities along the lengthy shorelines and there will be little the government can do.

DrTskoul

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #857 on: July 31, 2019, 06:07:07 PM »
Observers and activists slammed the Russian government for not responding earlier.


And short of a declaration of emergency, exactly what should be expected of the Russian government. These fires are in remote areas and, for the most part, cannot be fought.

We are going to see similar complaints in the U.S. from wealthy communities along the lengthy shorelines and there will be little the government can do.

Yes, there is no way to put those fires out. You cannot send people and with just planes you achieve nothing...

vox_mundi

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #858 on: July 31, 2019, 06:37:02 PM »
The Amazon may follow in 5-10 years

Drought-Driven Wildfires On Rise In Amazon Basin, Upping CO2 Release
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/drought-driven-wildfires-on-rise-in-amazon-basin-upping-co2-release/

- Severe droughts are expected to become more common in the Brazilian Amazon as natural oceanic cycles are made more extreme by human-induced climate change.

- In this new climate paradigm, limiting deforestation alone will not be sufficient to reduce fires and curb carbon emissions, scientists say. The maintenance of healthy, intact, unfragmented forests is vital to providing resilience against further increases in Amazon fires.


---------------------

Amazon Deforestation is Accelerating Under Bolsonaro, and Scientists Fear a Tipping Point
https://qz.com/1676400/brazils-amazon-deforestation-accelerating-under-jair-bolsonaro/
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gerontocrat

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #859 on: July 31, 2019, 06:58:17 PM »
Siberian wildfires have made it to Bloomberg News.
I am sure I read that the Russian Taiga is a carbon sink ranking alongside the Amazon?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/putin-sends-military-to-fight-wildfires-raging-in-siberia?srnd=politics-vp
Putin Sends Military to Fight Wildfires Raging in Siberia
By Jake Rudnitsky
31 July 2019, 14:58 BST
 Russia declares state of emergency in four Siberian regions
 Fires are burning across a territory the size of Belgium

Quote
President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military to help battle wildfires burning across a territory the size of Belgium after record high temperatures turned huge patches of forest into a tinderbox.

Russia has declared a state of emergency in four Siberian districts because of the fires, following mounting pressure to act as plumes of smoke visible from space stretched across the region to the Urals mountains thousands of miles away. Putin told the Defense Ministry to join the fight after a meeting with Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

The mobilization marks a reversal from the hands-off approach that allowed the fires to spread during a hot summer in which June temperatures in the affected regions were about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) above the 30-year average from 1981 to 2010. There were efforts to fight just 107,000 hectares (264,400 acres) of blazes out of a total of 3 million hectares that were burning Wednesday, according to Russia’s Federal Forestry Agency.

Greenpeace Russia spokesman Andrey Allakhverdov said the fires are on track to be the worst since the government eased rules on containing blazes in 2015, when it created zones of control in which the authorities were effectively allowed to ignore conflagrations that didn’t threaten to damage property or lives.

“Due to climate change, we’re seeing a much higher frequency of extreme weather events,” said Oksana Tarasova, head of the World Meteorological Organization’s Atmospheric Research and Environment Department in Geneva. “We’ve seen longer periods without precipitation and with higher temperatures that create the ideal conditions for these fires.”

Tarasova said emissions from the fires, which were on par with the annual output of a small country, were less a concern than the destruction of forests that serve as vital carbon storage sinks for the planet.
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kassy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #860 on: July 31, 2019, 07:16:18 PM »
So how much has this wildfire/peatfire been included in all models so far. The wildfires added up over certain areas put out CO2 equal to countries (think i have seen Belgium and Sweden mentioned) then there is the peat fires which do not stop and they might be very damaging even when you do not see them.

They seem like a recurring problem and the planetary climate trend says why not?

We might have severely underestimated sink/source at the level where it mattters.
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arthur

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #861 on: July 31, 2019, 08:38:38 PM »
Such a great amount of discussion about the impact of these wildfires on the arctic melt situation.Nobody mentions the one impact that has yet to be quantified in any rational way.The amount of actual HEAT produced per square mile of burned forest and a relative example to amount of heat given off per square mile by an unburned forest.Thus giving an observer the ability to calculate how much extra heat is entering the regions around the arctic during major wildfire events.A tremendous amount of heat to be sure but enough to influence the weather patterns?

Keep your Atomic Bomb analogies to yourself!

TerryM

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #862 on: July 31, 2019, 09:18:43 PM »
The "Smoking Hills" of the North West Territories have been burning for a very long time. Coal and sulfur don't make stable neighbors and the fires had been burning long before Franklin noted them in 1826.
Rain might douse the fire, but it also fires up the sulfur. The nearest village is named Paulatuk or Place of Coal.


Burning Mountain in New South Wales, Australia is a coal fire that has been burning for ~6,000 years while in Germany Brennender Berg's coal seam was only ignited in 1688.


I assume that more than a few of these peat fires may continue for an equally long duration.
Terry

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #863 on: July 31, 2019, 09:33:57 PM »

Tom_Mazanec

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« Last Edit: August 02, 2019, 01:42:20 AM by Tom_Mazanec »

dnem

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #865 on: August 02, 2019, 02:37:44 PM »
So how much has this wildfire/peatfire been included in all models so far. The wildfires added up over certain areas put out CO2 equal to countries (think i have seen Belgium and Sweden mentioned)

I find these "equal to emissions from Country X" comparisons dumb and unhelpful.  I saw one report saying that the output of arctic fires in June totaled about 50 megatons.  That's about 0.26% of total annual global CO2 emissions (if I got my orders of magnitude right!).  Assuming that number has now doubled or tripled or more, fires in the north may be contributing on the order of 1% of emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels.

DrTskoul

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #866 on: August 02, 2019, 03:57:02 PM »

TerryM

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #867 on: August 02, 2019, 04:31:52 PM »
Giant sinkholes appear as wildfires rage near Siberia


I believe fighting the fires that threaten towns and cities is the same policy that Canada uses when we fight forest fires. I'd assume that it's the same in Alaska and other northern forests.
Terry

Rich

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #868 on: August 02, 2019, 05:03:16 PM »
So how much has this wildfire/peatfire been included in all models so far. The wildfires added up over certain areas put out CO2 equal to countries (think i have seen Belgium and Sweden mentioned)

I find these "equal to emissions from Country X" comparisons dumb and unhelpful.  I saw one report saying that the output of arctic fires in June totaled about 50 megatons.  That's about 0.26% of total annual global CO2 emissions (if I got my orders of magnitude right!).  Assuming that number has now doubled or tripled or more, fires in the north may be contributing on the order of 1% of emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels.

We're up to ~120 megatons and counting from the Arctic fires That's about 0.3% of the 40 Gt global total or 1 day of extra emissions.

If you look at it as an isolated concealed event, not such a big deal.

But it ain't that. This is an example of a positive feedback, not an isolated event. By the time this thing burns out and you consider the lost CO2 uptake from those trees not being there in years to come, maybe this is a 1,000+ megaton event. And then you start adding in comparable events like sundry methane leaks and fires elsewhere and Japanese and Europeans buying millions of air conditioning units to cope with unprecedented heat.   

and badda bing, badda boom.....shit starts getting away from us.

It's only 2019. We're just starting to see AGW react to the Great Acceleration. What we're seeing in the Arctic now is the work of AGW as a precocious child. A malevolent teenager is coming soon before we get the real deal.

dnem

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #869 on: August 02, 2019, 10:53:07 PM »
I now see that I had already made a guess at 100 megatons (and used 38 GT as my baseline) to arrive at 0.26%. Anyway, yes, it's an increasing feedback and not insignificant even at this level when it's imperative for annual emissions to be dropping.

Freegrass

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #870 on: August 03, 2019, 05:09:44 AM »
Does anyone know what could cause these high levels of carbon monoxide? Could this "hotspot" be a peat fire?

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=-52.10,113.69,3000/loc=122.788,65.764

This spot also has the highest concentration of CO2 on the planet. 485 ppm.  ???
Edit; There are a few other spots on the planet with higher concentrations. The world is on fire...

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/orthographic=-55.53,114.11,3000/loc=123.300,66.032
« Last Edit: August 03, 2019, 05:32:00 AM by Freegrass »
90% of the world is religious, but somehow "love thy neighbour" became "fuck thy neighbours", if they don't agree with your point of view.

WTF happened?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #871 on: August 03, 2019, 09:30:51 PM »

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #872 on: August 06, 2019, 10:21:17 PM »
« Last Edit: August 06, 2019, 10:51:37 PM by Tom_Mazanec »


Paddy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #874 on: August 13, 2019, 01:48:03 PM »
Smoke from wildfires now covers an area "bigger than the EU" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/arctic-wildfires-smoke-cloud

gerontocrat

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #875 on: August 13, 2019, 01:52:47 PM »
I was wandering around a bit of ASIF history and found - from 2013

Quote
silkman

Siberian Fires
« on: June 30, 2013, 08:56:23 AM »

MODIS this morning has a very clear image of wild fires in Siberia with the smoke plume spreading hundreds of miles to the East.

Though these are a part of the natural course of events it's concerning to consider the implications of more frequent conflagrations on this scale in such a remote area, particularly to arctic albedo.

Things have got a lot worse in the last 6 years, and can no longer be considered as "a part of the natural course of events ". 6 years is not a long time.
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nanning

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #876 on: August 13, 2019, 04:54:41 PM »
Quote
Things have got a lot worse in the last 6 years
Indeed. Worsening ever more. There'll be no end to the worsening for the next couple of centuries I guess. As long as GMST keeps rising. Or until the forests are gone of course.
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bbr2314

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #877 on: August 13, 2019, 05:54:12 PM »
Quote
Things have got a lot worse in the last 6 years
Indeed. Worsening ever more. There'll be no end to the worsening for the next couple of centuries I guess. As long as GMST keeps rising. Or until the forests are gone of course.
Or until the humans are (mostly) gone  ;D

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #878 on: August 13, 2019, 06:35:30 PM »
I read recently- somewhere, maybe even here- that because we have altered most of the very fire prone savanna around the world, that total annual area burned has declined over the past few centuries.
This surprised me- probably mostly because I live in the boreal and fire season is definitely getting longer.
So I noodled around  to look for evidence, pro or con and what I found is....it's complicated.
Yes it does appear that global fire incidence is lower now than a couple of hundred years ago, but there are strong regional variations.
Complicating my search is the fact that the denier-sphere has, naturally, latched onto this trend as evidence for whatever thing it is that they are denying.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is pretty legit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/

Extract:
"Thus, while there are clearly some noteworthy trends in area burned for specific recent periods and regions, the general perception of increasing fire around the world is not supported by the data available to date. This does not withstand the observation of increasing fire season length in some areas [50], which is an important contributor to the increase in area burned during this century in the northwestern USA [43,46], boreal Canada and Alaska [51,52]. A future lengthening of the fire season is also anticipated for many other regions of the globe, with a potential associated increase of fire activity [19,53–56]. It is, however, important to recognize that in addition to direct climatic factors, other factors such as fuel availability and human influence will also strongly affect future fire activity [57,58].

Thus the widespread use of limited datasets or excessive extrapolation of short-term regional trends may go some way in explaining the widely held view of generally increasing fire around the world. The wider impacts of fire on society examined in §3b–d, however, may be even more relevant in driving the overall perceptions of fire trends."


Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #879 on: August 14, 2019, 02:45:37 AM »
Fires are getting too severe for species that require fires. Black backed woodpecker next on endangered species list (if Trump doesn't end it)?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/08/forest-fires-too-intense-adapted-woodpeckers/

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #880 on: August 19, 2019, 02:10:40 PM »
Second out of control wildfire in Gran Canaria this year.

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/19/inenglish/1566205037_427383.html?autoplay=0

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #881 on: August 21, 2019, 06:52:21 AM »
Amazon fires: Brazilian rainforest burning at record rate, space agency warns


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49415973

Brazil's Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, according to new data from the country's space research agency.
The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 83% increase on the same period in 2018.
It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro fired the head of the agency amid rows over its deforestation data.

Smoke from the fires caused a blackout in the city of Sao Paulo on Monday.
The daytime blackout, which lasted for about an hour, came after strong winds brought in smoke from forest fires burning in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia, more than 2,700km (1,700 miles) away.

Conservationists have blamed Mr Bolsonaro, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land.

Inpe said it had detected more than 72,000 fires between January and August - the highest number since records began in 2013. It said it had observed more than 9,500 forest fires since Thursday, mostly in the Amazon region.

more at the link.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #882 on: August 21, 2019, 07:17:17 PM »
Smoke from Amazon Wildfires Plunges Sao Paulo Into Darkness In Middle of Day
https://mobile.twitter.com/Gianvitor/status/1163526142088876038
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2019/08/cold-front-and-wild-fires-cause-sao-paulo-to-go-dark-during-the-day.shtml


Morpheus: ... We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.  - Matrix (1999)

The largest city in Brazil was plunged into darkness in the middle of the day on Monday after billowing smoke from ongoing wildfires in the Amazon region combined with a weather pattern, creating an ominous, dark blanket over the metropolis.

Thick, black clouds moved over Sao Paulo around 3 p.m. and stayed over the area for more than an hour.

Officials from Brazil's National Institute of Meteorology, known as Inment, said the phenomenon was due to the combination of several factors: a cold front, humid air, heavy clouds, and winds bringing particulate matter from ongoing wildfires in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

"The darkening of the sky was quite intense," Inmet meteorologist Franco Nadal Villela told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday on Twitter that atmospheric monitoring data shows smoke from fires across the Amazonian region has caused smoke to reach the Atlantic coast, including Sao Paulo.


https://dailyhive.com/mapped/sao-paulo-smoke-amazon-rainforest-fires

This year Brazil has had the highest number of forest fires since 2013. As of Sunday (18), there were already 71,497 fires burning in the country. The record was 2016, with 66,622 fires.

The month of August is also breaking records for the past seven years, with 32,932 fires, up 264% from the same period in 2018. The figure is also about 50% higher than the previous year.


----------------------------

Smoke Has Blotted Out the Sun in São Paulo as the Amazon Burns
https://earther.gizmodo.com/smoke-has-blotted-out-the-sun-in-sao-paulo-as-the-amazo-1837413488

What began as a “day of fire” a week and a half ago has now turned daytime skies in São Paulo an inky black. The Amazon has been in deep, deep trouble ever since far-right president Jair Bolsnaro took over running Brazil. Advocates feared his regime would commit ecological “genocide” in the Amazon and with each passing month, those fears are becoming reality.

The Brazilian state of Pará saw a huge burst of fire activity last week after farmers called for a “day of fire” on August 10, according to Brazilian paper Folha de S. Paolo. INPE spotted hundreds of fires across the state as farmers lit up rainforest, a practice often used to clear land to put in mono crops like soybeans or open land for pastures and cattle farming. The fires have also sent carbon dioxide emissions spiraling well above normal, according to data from the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

“The recent increase of the deforestation combined with fires could exponentially affect Amazonia by liberating CO2 and other greenhouse gases,” Vitor Gomes, an environmental scientist at the Federal University of Pará in Brazil, told Earther.

Those fires, along with others in the state of Amazonas to the northwest, have continued burning for the past 10 days, unleashing a massive plume of smoke. Prevailing winds on Monday and Tuesday took that smoke and transported it nearly 2,000 miles to southeast. That blackened São Paulo skies on Monday, creating eerie scenes like darkened streets and cars driving with headlights in mid-afternoon.

The vibe is reminiscent of last year, when smoke from wildfires did the exact same thing in British Columbia. But in some ways, the Brazilian situation is more ominous. After all, the fires in British Columbia weren’t inspired by a fascist president looking to open the forest up for business.

... Eventually, rising temperatures and drought coupled with deforestation could permanently alter one of the world’s most iconic ecosystems, effectively cleaving the Amazon in two. It’s not like the damage can be easily undone. Once the Amazon is gone, it’s gone... , meaning climate change could accelerate there and over the rest of the planet.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2019, 09:21:59 PM by vox_mundi »
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Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

bligh8

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #883 on: August 21, 2019, 08:28:10 PM »
"The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured these images of several fires burning in the states of Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, and Mato Grosso on August 11 and August 13, 2019.


vox_mundi

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“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #885 on: August 22, 2019, 01:22:16 AM »
Quote
As wildfires get worse, insurers pull back from riskiest areas
A growing number of Western homeowners are being dropped by their insurance companies, prompting warnings from officials and worries about what comes next.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/climate/fire-insurance-renewal.html

AUG 22
Bigger, more frequent wildfires turning Canada’s boreal forest into source of carbon: researchers
https://globalnews.ca/news/5794851/wildfires-climate-change-boreal-forest/
Quote
Bigger, hotter wildfires are turning Canada’s vast boreal forest into a significant new source of climate-changing greenhouse gases, scientists say.

The shift, which may have already happened, could force firefighters to change how they battle northern blazes, said Merritt Turetsky, an ecologist at the University of Guelph and co-author of a paper that appeared in the science journal Nature on Wednesday.

Amazon rainforest fires leave São Paulo in the dark
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/amazon-rainforest-fires-leave-sao-paulo-in-the-dark/
Quote
The number of forest fires in Brazil soared 85 percent between January 1 and August 20 compared to a year ago, according to data from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Roughly half of fire occurrences of this year were registered in the last 20 days, INPE data showed.
In a technical note released in the evening of August 20, the Brazilian NGO IPAM (Institute of Environmental Research in Amazonia) said the occurrences are directly connected to deforestation as it didn’t find any evidence to argue that the fires could be a consequence of a lack of rain.
Fires in Brazil came to spotlight since the afternoon of August 19, when São Paulo’s skies suddenly turned black, spurring discussion about the linkage between the fires and the phenomenon. Since then, “Amazon Fires” are trending on Twitter under the hashtag #PrayforAmazonas.

See a real-time map of all the fires burning down the Amazon
https://www.fastcompany.com/90394036/see-a-real-time-map-of-all-the-fires-burning-down-the-amazon
Quote
A map from Global Forest Watch, a project from the nonprofit World Resources Institute, shows fire alerts in near real time, pulling data from NASA satellites that track changes in heat and brightness, and then running the data through an algorithm to determine if it’s a fire. (They technically map “fire alerts,” because it’s not possible to tell whether one dot on the map is its own fire or part of an adjacent one). The map is updated every 12 hours.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 02:51:34 AM by Tom_Mazanec »

Juan C. García

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #886 on: August 23, 2019, 03:04:58 AM »
Brazil CO2 and CO surface concentration (from Nullschool).
A tragedy.  :-\
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=-61.07,-10.27,601/loc=-57.838,-19.401

On CO2 be careful, reddish colors means low CO2, bluish colors mean high CO2.

P. S. There are several places on the world with high concentrations, but the Amazon should be a sink, not a producer of CO and CO2.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 03:47:09 AM by Juan C. García »
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

Alexander555

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #887 on: August 23, 2019, 07:14:27 PM »
And it looks like the african forests are not burning less. This is going to be a disaster.

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #888 on: August 23, 2019, 07:25:53 PM »
Fast-moving wildfire erupts in California, forcing thousands to evacuate

Mountain fire races across hundreds of acres in just hours as wildfire season looms large over the state


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/22/mountain-fire-california-evacuation-shasta-latest

Quote:
A fast-moving wildfire that broke out on Thursday in northern California has forced the evacuation of nearly 4,000 residents, racing across at least 600 acres within just a few hours, officials say.

The Mountain fire, which erupted on the outskirts of a national forest in northern California, has threatened 1,110 homes and structures. As of Friday morning the fire was 40% contained , according to Cal Fire.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

nanning

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #889 on: August 24, 2019, 07:05:47 AM »
Amazon fires: the tribes fighting to save their dying rainforest
A video by the Guardian (<2m):

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Pmt111500

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #890 on: August 25, 2019, 10:19:39 AM »
Well, just pointing out, the Amazonas rainforest is a rainy area largely because of the evaporation from the massive amount of plant life. As it looks like they want to change it to contain much less plants, the amount of rain they'll get is going to diminish quite a lot. By how much, you'd have to consult a specialist in the tropical weather and plants.

My guess would be it decrease in rain is going to be less than linear, as the planetary tropical waves bring some moisture from the Atlantic, but make no mistake, this system isn't going to miraculously get more active, rather the increase in S-N winds would direct the moisture towards higher latitudes. Traditionally slash and burned soil gives some 5 years of diminishing crops, so much of the now cleared land will be pretty much useless in, say 7 years.
 
And no, there's absolutely no guarantee that the rainforest will ever grow back. As the Arctic Ice biome is slowly vanishing before our eyes, we might also get a new biome in Brazil, a stunted growth extremely hot savanna.

Guardian attempt to tell people about this:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/31/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-weather-droughts-report

Plenty more studies if one cares to search.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 10:55:37 AM by Pmt111500 »

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #891 on: August 25, 2019, 01:55:47 PM »
Brazil says it lacks resources to fight Amazon wildfires as dispute rages over who is to blame
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-23/bolsonaro-says-brazil-lacks-resources-to-fight-amazon-fires/11440998
Quote
The Bishops Conference for Latin America expressed concern about what it called "a tragedy", and on Thursday called on countries to take immediate action to protect the rainforest and the communities that live in and around it.

"We urge the governments of the Amazon countries, especially Brazil and Bolivia, the United Nations and the international community to take serious measures to save the world's lungs," the Bishops Conference said.

"If the Amazon suffers, the world suffers."

Glad to see my Church speaking out!

What the Amazon fires mean for wild animals
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/08/how-the-amazon-rainforest-wildfires-will-affect-wild-animals/
Quote
For the thousands of mammal, reptile, amphibian, and bird species that live in the Amazon, the wildfires’ impact will come in two phases: one immediate, one long-term.

“In the Amazon, nothing is adapted to fire,” says William Magnusson, a researcher specializing in biodiversity monitoring at the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) in Manaus, Brazil.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 02:12:39 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

kassy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #892 on: August 25, 2019, 04:16:12 PM »
Well, just pointing out, the Amazonas rainforest is a rainy area largely because of the evaporation from the massive amount of plant life.

Another pattern is the spatial pattern of deforestation.

See graphic in reply 200. The fire network looks just like light at night maps in more populated areas. They will connect up the blotches that are not connected yet and thus the forest gets cut too pieces exposing more edges which dry out quicker. 

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,755.msg224453.html#new

BTW i also recommend reading post 189 on the previous post of that thread because it explains the incentive to burn down the forest.

And ( #199):
It's Not Just Brazil's Amazon - Bolivia's Vital Forests Are Burning Out of Control, Too

Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That's more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years.

...

The Chiquitano dry forest in Bolivia was the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. It's now unclear whether it will retain that status. The forest is home to Indigenous peoples as well as iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos, and tapirs. Some species in the Chiquitano are found nowhere else on Earth.

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-not-just-brazil-s-amazon-bolivia-s-vital-forests-are-on-fire-too
 
I want to add a comment but i just can´t find a way to state how appalled i am by all this.
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

gerontocrat

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #893 on: August 25, 2019, 05:29:33 PM »
We look at the short-term - CO2 emissions etc.

The question is (see above post) what will be the long-term effects?

It used to be assumed that after a wildfire - there is all that ash on the ground - fertiliser, plus lot of open spaces, promoting regrowth the following year at a furious pace. i.e. the forest or bush or grassland would heal itself.

But with climate change and more frequent and widespread wildfire events, will the recovery be harder and harder to occur? And if the forest stays dry in regions with a lot of peat - will the underground peat fires persist and spread?

I don't know the answers to these questions - anybody got any links to research papers ?
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
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kassy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #894 on: August 25, 2019, 06:04:18 PM »
I don´t think peat fires need to stay dry, they just need to be ignited.

There is so much playing a role in this that in a way reading the old research papers posted here might give a clue but if you really figure it out you can probably submit a paper instead of a post at the end.

One thing that is obvious is that climate change is on the march so your forests are not regrowing in the same circumstances. Also usually nowadays the burn more, harder and longer so the ´naked patches´ are bigger. A big scar in an even bigger forest heals quicker then a wasteland.

With the Amazon down the next big targets are the Congo which has rare earths and peat layers that will make Indonesia look like a BBQ.

And probably PNG (rather random link there but it has some land use info).
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/25/sustaining-indigenous-forests-with-blockchain-technology/
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

vox_mundi

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #895 on: August 25, 2019, 06:12:03 PM »
From 2014: Drought Bites as Amazon’s ‘Flying Rivers’ Dry Up
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/15/drought-bites-as-amazons-flying-rivers-dry-up

Some Brazilian scientists say the absence of rain that has dried up rivers and reservoirs in central and southeast Brazil is not just a quirk of nature, but a change brought about by a combination of the continuing deforestation of the Amazon and global warming.

This combination, they say, is reducing the role of the Amazon rainforest as a giant “water pump”, releasing billions of litres of humidity from the trees into the air in the form of vapour.

Meteorologist Jose Marengo, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, first coined the phrase “flying rivers” to describe these massive volumes of vapour that rise from the rainforest, travel west, and then − blocked by the Andes − turn south.

In 2009 Antonio Nobre, a Brazilian climate scientist, stated that without the flying river, much of southern Brazil, which produces approximately 70% of the country's GNP, would be arid desert. Clearing the Amazon forest for logging and agriculture is likely to result in lower yields elsewhere. Smoke from the fires set by some farmers to clear land sends particles into the atmosphere, resulting in diminished precipitation, which in turn leaves the trees, which have evolved in wet conditions, vulnerable to fire. The drought in southern Brazil in 2010 is believed to be due to the drying up of the flying rivers, and the even worse 2014-5 drought is also attributed to this.

In an interview with the journal Valor Economica, he said: “Destroying the Amazon to advance the agricultural frontier is like shooting yourself in the foot. The Amazon is a gigantic hydrological pump that brings the humidity of the Atlantic Ocean into the continent and guarantees the irrigation of the region.”


“Of course, we need agriculture,” he said. “But without trees there would be no water, and without water there is no food.

----------------------------

Researchers find link between Amazon fire risk, devastating hurricanes
https://phys.org/news/2015-08-link-amazon-devastating-hurricanes.html

"North Atlantic hurricanes and Amazon fires are related to one another through shared linkages to ocean-atmosphere interactions in the tropical Atlantic Ocean," he said.

The mechanics of the ocean-fire link in the Amazon are fairly straightforward. When the North Atlantic sea surface temperatures are warmer than normal, less rain falls in the southern Amazon. As a consequence, groundwater is not fully recharged by the end of the rainy season. Coming into the next dry spell, when there's less water stored away in the soil, plants can't evaporate and transpire as much water out through their stems and leaves. As a result, the atmosphere gets drier and drier, creating conditions in which fires can spread rapidly. Ground-clearing fires set by farmers for agricultural purposes can easily jump from fields to dense forests under these conditions.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #896 on: August 26, 2019, 04:05:13 AM »
Fire retardant drop from aircraft.  SUV is smashed!
Quote
CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE) 8/23/19, 5:14 PM
This test was w/ 9,000 pounds of fire retardant. Imagine what could happen w/ a 170,000 pound low drop. Aircraft flying through smoke can have a difficult time seeing you. Help alleviate risk. Be aware of your surroundings. #HeadsUpClearOut Full video:
https://twitter.com/cal_fire/status/1165009443756470272
1-min vid at tweet.  Full video is about 5 minutes long.

——
Glendale, California.  Fire in the video at the link was limited to uninhabited area near highway.  Dry conditions are forecast for the western U.S. for several more days at least.

Aug 25, 2019: Freeway 134 Glendale,Ca #Glendalefire / Twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/purpleondapus/status/1165774315603652608
45 second vid at link.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #897 on: August 26, 2019, 01:32:43 PM »
Quote
We For News (@WeForNews) 8/26/19, 7:05 AM
#BREAKING G7 to finance fire-fighting aircraft for Amazon: French presidency-AFP

Dave Toussaint (@engineco16) 8/26/19, 7:12 AM
Interesting statement. So where do we find all of these planes?
https://twitter.com/wefornews/status/1165943327037878273
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

TerryM

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #898 on: August 26, 2019, 01:39:37 PM »
We're horrified when we learn of wildfires - yet expect applause when we burn pelletised wood?
Terry

DrTskoul

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #899 on: August 26, 2019, 05:42:26 PM »
The propaganda is taking hold

ORWELLIAN BRAZIL: ‘THERE IS NO FIRE’

Quote
An airplane pilot who declined to give his name accused space agency scientists in the United States of releasing doctored satellite photos of the Amazon.

“There is so much sensationalism. The images of Nasa — that show fire — are manipulated,” the pilot said. “I have been flying since Monday and have not seen anything.”