Executive Summary of California Climate Change Report
Just barely two weeks past ferocious wildfires in California another lifts its licking tongues — this time near Yosemite Valley.
An out-of-control wildfire burning Sunday near an entrance to Yosemite National Park has forced hundreds of residents to flee as flames whipped through a rugged canyon untouched by fire for a century.
The fast-spreading blaze has charred 16,000 acres since Friday as wooded slopes ignited amid hot, dry conditions that have plagued California for months. The steep terrain west of the park is overgrown with dense brush that is fueling the flames, fire officials said.
“There’s no fire history in the past 100 hundred years. That’s one of the reasons this fire’s been able to burn so erratically,” said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The wildfire led officials to order the evacuations of 170 homes under immediate threat. About 2,000 homes faced at least some danger from the fast-spreading flames, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
It’s a rare day that something significant about the environment doesn’t appear on the front page of the SF Chronicle. I’m forgiving them for the bad old days of murder following mayhem
California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces launched plans on Wednesday for one of the world’s largest carbon-trading systems, a sweeping effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
The North American program, like a similar market-based system in Europe, focuses on heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities.
Environmental groups immediately questioned whether the plan will be tough enough on polluters, while industry groups said the program lacks details.
California officials said the proposal will be an integral part of the Golden State’s ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020, as required by the landmark legislation AB32 that the Legislature approved and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 2006.
Buried away in section B of the Chron, after weeks of front page headlines, was the news that the three big fires in California have much quieted.
The Butte fire which threatened Paradise and pushed 6,500 out of their homes has retreated and the people allowed to return. The Big Basin fire in Big Sur is retreated to higher hills after threatening just about everything. Highway One is re-opened. The Tassajara Zen retreat barely escaped with just four out-buildings burned. The Goleta fire has been 80% contained with a few evacuation warnings still in effect.
With all the other chaos in the air, from collapsing mega-banks to agony in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s unlikely that the lessons of these fires will be burned into our collective consciousness. Except for those who were directly affected they will be lost in hazy memory by August. Too bad. As the Continental Army died by the thousands in New York during the summer of 1776, Washington, Greene and others could read the signs: cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness was the order of the day. Without it, the Republic would be lost. We might use the same: clean the air, clean the air, clean the air — of all sorts of impurities but above all CO2, should be the morning motto of everyone who loves the world.
Stiff punishments were handed out for shitting in the trenches. We should do the same.
More photos of Big Sur. Everybody is on the way out.
The blaze had swept within a half mile of at least one major resort — the Ventana Inn and Spa — by mid-morning, as winds whipped the coast, humidity dropped and the fire grew by more than 8,000 acres overnight.
No commentary jumping out anywhere about the contribution climate change might have in all of this. So let me make sure we know what is known.
“Since 1986, longer, warmer summers have resulted in a fourfold increase of major wildfires and a sixfold increase in the area of forest burned, compared to the period from 1970 to 1986. A similar increase in wildfire activity has been reported in Canada from 1920 to 1999 (5).
Westerling et al. used the most comprehensive data set of wildfire occurrences yet compiled for the western United States to analyze the geographic location, seasonal timing, and regional climatology of the 1166 recorded wildfires with an extent of more than 400 ha. They found that the length of the active wildfire season (when fires are actually burning) in the western United States has increased by 78 days, and that the average burn duration of large fires has increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days. Based on comparisons with climatic indices that use daily weather records to estimate land surface dryness, Westerling et al. attribute this increase in wildfire activity to an increase in spring and summer temperatures by ~0.9°C and a 1- to 4-week earlier melting of mountain snowpacks. Snow-dominated forests at elevations of ~2100 m show the greatest increase in wildfire activity.”
The closing paragraph reads:
“Wildfires add an estimated 3.5 × 1015 g to atmospheric carbon emissions each year, or roughly 40% of fossil fuel carbon emissions (13). If climate change is increasing wildfire, as Westerling et al. suggest, these new sources of carbon emissions will accelerate the buildup of greenhouse gases and could provide a feed-forward acceleration of global warming.”
The full report, in Science, is here.
Wildfires were scattered around Northern California on Sunday in the heart of wine country and in remote forests, the latest in what has become an unusually destructive year.
State officials said lightning started more than 500 fires during the weekend.
One had spread across 5.5 square miles by early Sunday, after starting Saturday afternoon in Napa County and quickly moving into a mostly rural area of Solano County.
Just when the big Santa Cruz mountain fire died down, another further north started up. When it was under control another near Watsonville began. 500 people evacuated. Highway 5 shut down.
“A series of fires burned 300-500 acres north of Watsonville on Friday afternoon, chasing 400 people from their homes and closing a 5-mile stretch of northbound Highway 1 in a scene that one witness called apocalyptic. ”
And of course, with so many able-bodied off fighting a war, the lack for fighting fires is getting close to pretty damned scary.
The number of employed Forest Service firefighters is 8.5 percent below the 4,432 seasonal workers authorized for Region 5, which includes California, Hawaii and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, according to Feinstein.
She [Senator Feinstein] also expressed concern that only 186 of the agency’s 276 engines were available to respond to fires and that a new C-130J aircraft will not be available this year for air tanker duty.
The vacancies come at a time when the economic impact of soaring gas prices is being felt throughout the economy, including the firefighting budget. There has been less money available for firefighter training in California, which is facing a budget deficit of some $15 billion.
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