The devastating blazes that swept through Southern California these last few days were largely unrelated to changing weather patterns due to global warming, as some newscasters and pundits have stated. I have been a believer in the danger of global warming for more than two decades, but I don't think it's the culprit here. Rather, the blame for the conflagrations should be placed on chaparral, a growing population, and inadequate suburban planning. Fire in the hills behind Malibu and San Diego is inevitable, and at the moment at least is not connected to our pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
It is true that droughts in the West triggered by global warming and/or natural cycles indeed lay conditions for devastating forest fires in higher elevations. This holds true for the conifer forests above 6,000 feet or so in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and other local ranges. It may have played a role in the Lake Arrowhead blazes. But for most of the Southland, it's a different scenario.
The Santa Monica mountains and many other hills and ranges in Southern California are primarily covered by the dense prickly shrubs and small trees known collectively as chaparral. This native vegetation blankets our mountain slopes up to the point at which conifers take over. Manzanita, scrub oak, chamise, laurel sumac, California lilac, and buckwheat are among the predominant species of chaparral. The toyon shrub, also called "Christmas berry" or "California holly," reputedly put the "holly" in Hollywood. Chaparral thrives in Southern California's Mediterranean climate of mild winters with moderate precipitation and hot, dry summers.
Chaparral adapted over the millennia before man's arrival to natural fires caused by lightning strikes. Most chaparral species can't reproduce without brushfires. They have hard seeds that will not germinate without fire; they lie dormant in the earth for decades until the next blaze comes along. Many chaparral species also sprout back vegetatively from root crowns after a fire or other disturbance. "Fire ecology" studies such interrelationships. Where there's chaparral, there are going to be wildfires.
Over the long run, high rainfall during wetter years can actually set the stage for massive conflagrations during the dry season. When the rainy season (usually November through April) is wetter than usual, the chaparral grows abundantly, laying in extra fuel for the next big blaze. The most flammable areas of chaparral are those with the most biomass, typically patches at least thirty to forty years old. The older the chaparral, the more potential there is for a catastrophic wildfire.
Global warming could play an exacerbating role if it causes Southern California rainfall to increase. But the numbers don't show that happening in L.A., for example, nor do they show annual precipitation to be varying more than usual there. Los Angeles has rainfall records stretching back to 1877. Downtown L.A. averaged 15.11 inches from 1877-2005, according to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). While Los Angeles had only 3.21 inches in 2006-07, its all-time low, and 37.25 inches in '04-05, close to its record high, those numbers are not unexpected. L.A. has had seven seasons of rain above 30 inches since 1877, and seven years in the four to six inch range. It's had 35 seasons below 10 inches, and 25 above 20 inches. Annual rainfall fluctuates greatly now, just as it did a century ago. The last ten years have averaged 15.3 inches, close to the norm. Global warming could cause the swings to get more extreme, but that hasn't happened yet. Just check the NOAA graphs.
The extremely dry winter of 2006-07 created prime conditions for this year's fires, but the potential for wildfires is always present in chaparral areas. The Southland's long hot dry season (usually May through October) and the fall's Santa Ana winds inevitably create dangerously flammable conditions. And a 50mph Santa Ana on a 90-degree day will dry out brush by itself and threaten to take any fire to a catastrophic level.
Chaparral will burn with regularity over the long term, and anyone who chooses to live near it will eventually be threatened by a brush fire. As California's population swells, bringing with it an increase in accidental and intentional fires, and as developers continue to build new homes without appropriate planning in foothills and former wilderness areas, we can expect the fire danger to grow. For the near future, at least, these are the major factors in our wildfires, not global warming.
All I can say is WOW! Having worked on a fire crew, as well as a tree planter, and being an ENVIRONMENTALIST I can assure you that many, if not most of those fire fighters consider themselves to be environmentalists.
What you won't see on those fire lines is Fat Cat radio "personalities."
The disaster and deaths caused by these fires is attributable to suburban expansion, not changes in weather or climate.
"This is exactly what we've been projecting to happen, both in short-term fire forecasts for this year and the longer term patterns that can be linked to global climate change," said Ronald Neilson, a professor at Oregon State University and bioclimatologist with the USDA Forest Service.
Taken from the following article.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071024103856.htm
A transcript from Rush Limbaugh recently on the fires and who's responsible.
http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=64658
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=land+development+republican+contributions+san+diego&spell=1
"The economy of California is a dominant force in the economy of the United States, with California paying more to the federal system than it receives in direct monetary benefits"...
"The economy of California is often cited for how it would compare to other countries if California were an independent nation. The statistic quoted varies widely (usually placing California between 6th and 10th), depending on the source."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
Political problems:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=land+development+republ
ican+contributions+san+diego&spell=1
Water shortages in CA and still they keep on building.
http://www.newsdaily.com/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070901-14331300-bc-us-califwater.xml
Americans use water like the supply of it is endless and it is not:
http://books.google.com/books?source=web&q=Oglala+aquifer&btnG=Search+Books
The firefighters are working very hard to keep the fires away from population centers.
Population is not only a California problem, it's worldwide:
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
http://www.versobooks.com/books/cdef/d-titles/davis_m_planet_of_slums.shtml
This year's weather pattern is anecdotal evidence of the effects of global warming. If it were a deeply impacting effect, then we would see a steep decline in precipitation, increase of wind, and other effects sustained for a long period of time.
I think that if you look at the yearly rainfall totals for LA and SD over the last 100 years, you will see a widely fluctuating pattern.
I am not disputing the presence of global warming and the effects it is having; however, one cannot use one year as the “smoking gun”.
But, the way I read it, you glanced a bit over the weather data in the last two years.
2005-2006 was the second wettest season in LA since they started records in the 1800's. Then they had the hottest July in their recorded history. The heat wave caused at least 141 deaths (a researcher now thinks it was three times higher then reported) in California. They were very worried about the fire season last year because of all the growth and then high heat later in the summer.
But this year was the driest year on record, and all the growth from last year helped fuel this fire.
I do not know about the temperatures this October compared to averages, nor do I know how the humidity compared to other years, but during the fire the temperatures were very high and the humidity very low.
As you point out the fire problems in the Chaparral do not extend to the mountains and one of the fires was in Lake Arrowhead at 5100 feet and probably had more to do with the dry, bark-beetle infested forest. The reasons for the bark-beetle infestation are closely linked to global warming.
The effects of Global Climate Change are hard to gauge: but that Global Climate Change exists is very easy to measure.
The extreme conditions across the globe are not to be taken lightly.
The US needs to achieve the same level of electrical generation from nuclear as France's 80 per cent. CO2 and air pollution free with Israel recently developing a process to recycle waste.
Dear Chris,
Every species toy list, are extremely fire resistant. This is why they crow in this area where hillside fires are prevalent. A fire can move through and these plants are hardly even touched,,,, UNLESS,,, they are ALL DEAD,,,, only the grasses and the fallen branches would usually burn. This would also apply to the live oaks now gone. The live oak is very slow growing. Many have survived 200 years of fires. They are now all GONE.
NOW,,,, if you will please review the photos of the these current fires, you will see that nothing is left, you hear people speaking of it looking like a Moonscape. Where are the stumps and scorched branches that would have re-grown this winter, under normal conditions?
A trip from San Bernardino to Hillcrest will show you about every 4th tree has been infested with the bark beetle. This is clear evidence of the drought conditions warned of from global climate change.
Chris, pine and conifers are watered not only by direct rainfall, but more so, by sweeping the night air for mists and fogs. This is why their needles and fawns are formed the way they are. It is not uncommon to sit beneath a pine in spring or fall evening and believe it to be raining.
The trees water themselves by gathering night mists.
In the last 40 years, these night mists have been on the decline leaving the California Pines at lower elevations highly susceptible to the Bark Beetle. Environmental researchers have been screaming about these conditions since the 70s, WARNING of just such a disaster. A drive along Ridgecrest Highway would have shown you the dead and dieing trees. The stood out like radish/brown clumps in the forest below.
Chris, what might your agenda be?
Why now, after 40 years of research, do you see it as your duty to attack these issues? We saw these things happening in the 60s with our own EYES.
WAIT,
Chris?????? Are you even 40 years old?
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
And the next worry, mudslides. When this area finally gets a good rainfall, there will be a lack of shrubs and vegetation that helps keep the top layer of soil intact.