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Published online 9 February 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.89
News: Briefing
Australian bushfires rage
Heatwaves and fires will become more frequent in a warming world.
Australian firefighters are desperately trying to extinguish the worst bushfires that the country has seen in decades, causing more than 170 deaths so far in the state of Victoria.
While strong winds continue to fan the flames, thousands of homeless families in search of shelter and food are flooding Red Cross relief centres set up around the state.
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Try and be objective - You say "Could climate change be responsible for the wildfire" and just before that mention that it was probably started deliberately by arsonists. The whole area has been declared a crime scene by the authorities. They maybe slightly clued up on these matters having dealt with fires over the years. Its a pity that a crime of mass murder should be used for propaganda about global warming. Australia at the moment happens to be the hottest place on earth. You didnt mention that Brittan is freezing cold. The UK which has about the best and oldest climate records in the world has this to say about the weather in the coming month. "The weather beyond about a week ahead stretches even the most experienced weather forecaster." Global warming forecasters dont seem to be similarly stretched while predicting years and decades ahead.
A home gooped with gelled water does not burn. Windborne embers quench on contact, the fire front moves past, the home remains - messy but harmed. It might cost $(US)100/home. Why put money where it effectively saves property? A politician who cannot seize advantage from disaster then selling rights to its reclamation is a disaster himself.
The comments by Richard Dawson exemplify the problem of communicating scientific facts and knowledge to everyone. Richard doesn?t understand the difference between weather and climate forecasting, and he can?t be blamed for it, as even some of our scientific colleagues are having difficulties with this. Yet it explains why we can predict long-term climate impacts, but not the weather 2 weeks hence. Further, Richard calls for objectivity, but he either didn?t read the article, misunderstood the content or deliberately misinterpreted the intent. You stated clearly, just after posing the question about climate change: ?No single weather event can be attributed to climate change with any degree of certainty? ? this holds for the Victorian heat wave as well as for the cold spell in the UK. However, most of these weather events are consistent with our scientific understanding of climate change (including the cold spell in the UK, btw). Their accumulated impact (=climate) results in global temperature increases that are beyond scientific doubt. The ongoing challenge is to educate the public and to help people and societies in the difficult task of adapting to a warmer, more volatile world. Holger Meinke, Netherlands
The question I would put to climate change doubters like Richard who exemplifies the 'head-in-the-sand' attitude of many is 'what if you're wrong?' As a species we continue to consume more and more electricity generated from fossil fuels and worse still, brown or black coal, drive vehicles, and live off CO2 expensive ready made food. Our lifestyles are not sustainable; neither is our population. Because climate change is a complex issue the science describing it is inexact - trends and probabilities over long time-frames - these are hard to explain to the general public. We need early legislation from governments globally and a price for carbon ASAP so that people who don't understand the issues are forced to behave responsibly, before it is too late. If we are wrong then no harm done, if we're right perhaps there's a fighting chance of leaving something for our children worth living on... Dr Karen Wilson
"We need early legislation from governments globally and a price for carbon ASAP so that people who don't understand the issues are forced to behave responsibly, before it is too late. If we are wrong then no harm done" What "... no harm done"? Are you joking? Please tell us what the expected economic impact is of the "changes in practice" that are needed to curb global warming, both industrial and individual. This is not a no-harm, no-foul situation. Should global warming be real and go unchecked it could be disasterous, but the economic impact -- on families, developing countries, and populations -- of efforts to redirect global warming can also be disasterous. Only a person already draped in all of the comforts of economic excess would be so thoughtless and bold as to suggest: oops, oh well, no harm done. How economically comfortable are you Dr. Wilson? Do you drive a car to restaurants or to other unnecessary-for-survival-destinations, travel abroad, use a hair dryer, have a home larger than is minimally required for your safety and physical well-being, or have excess clothing and material possession?
Regarding the first comment... yes, there could have been arsonists involved in starting some of the fires and that's a serious matter. But a separate question is 'why were these fires - unlike the thousands of others probably lit by arsonists in Australia in times past - so incredibly intense and damaging?' The answer seems pretty clear to me: Southeastern Australia has suffered unusual heat and extremely prolonged drought. One of the well-understood aspects of climate change is the likelihood of increasing heat and drought in many places. Figuratively speaking, climate change probably made Victoria into a tinderbox, then arsonists (or other means) provided the spark.
It appears that local government forced local residents to allow trees to grow near property and forbade them from clearing flammable material. This was in furtherance of an environmental programme. http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/2/10/aussie-firestarters-found.html Thanks greens.
I see that the IPCC report quoted was from July 2007. 18 months later the Northern hemisphere has cooled noticeably and is it a coincidence that sunspot activity has gone to zilch, nada, nothing. Why do humans think that they are so omnipotent that they can change climate in a MAJOR way with their energy consuming lifestyles. Google sunspot activity and also the Maunder Minimum and start to worry about serious global cooling and crop failures. The oat crop failed in Scotland for 7 out of 8 years. Global warming due to carbon - hogwash.
South eastern Australia has experienced over a week of temperatures over 40 degrees, culminating in very strong, hot winds. The local fire authorities acknowledge that they are unable, in those circumstances, to protect threatened property and lives. South Australia had the same conditions but no fires. The fires in Victoria have been a great tragedy that appears to be man-made by arsonists, not climate change. Henry Rischbieth
The article covers the Australian bushfires pretty well, and at least alludes to one of the most important and controversial aspects of bushfire control: "prescribed burning" - we usually call it back-burning in Australia - is not just being tested but has in the past been a fairly standard practice in south-eastern Australia. In recent years, however, perhaps due to agitation by some environmental groups, back-burning has declined considerably. Some scientists and politicians in recent years have warned that a huge fuel load of dead leaves, timber and grass has been building up in the forests and could result in disastrous fires if nothing is done to alleviate it. It appears that they may have been right.
It would appear that the reasons for the high death toll in bushfires in Victoria are complex, and not associated with temperature alone. It is wrong to associate the current high temperatures with "global warming" based on the limited data set at hand. There have been many droughts in Australia and most of the high temperature records were set in the 1920's. The world record for the longest sequence of days above 100°Fahrenheit (or 37.8° on the Celsius scale) is held by Marble Bar in the inland Pilbara district of Western Australia. The temperature, measured under standard exposure conditions, reached or exceeded the century mark every day from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924, a total of 160 days.
Holger Meinke, with respect, I suggest that you, or anyone else, cannot predict the long term future climate, just like you cannot predict the future weather. Predictions about future climate changes are based on mathematical models. These models can be wrong - and so far have proved to be wrong. The temperature rise predictions based on these models have been repeatedly lowered by the IPCC. The whole theory of anthropogenic or man made global warming is based on the theory that atmospheric CO2 levels, which have risen by 0.0001% approx of the total atmosphere since 1832 (or the dawn of the industrial revolution), have accounted for 100% of the 0.7 degrees C global temperature rise in the last 100 years or so. The suns radiation, insolation, the earth's orbit etc have absolutely nothing to do with it. Dr Karen Wilson - I would like to ask you - what if you are correct? That the sole reason for the global warming of the past few decades is due to evil humans burning "fossil fuels and worse still, brown or black coal, drive vehicles, and live off CO2 expensive ready made food"? The 'science' touted by the global warming advocates, including the IPCC, states that it will take at least a century or two before we can reverse global warming, assuming their models are correct, even assuming we can reverse the present trend of global industrialisation drastically, which I suggest is a political impossibility. So instead of "early legislation from governments globally and a price for carbon ASAP so that people who don't understand the issues are forced to behave responsibly" I suggest you, who understand the issues perfectly, just relax, enjoy life, if you can, and leave the rest of us who do not understand the issues to do the same.
People that could know better should also really refrain from using words such as "prediction". I cannot believe we still have to discuss this, but here we are...there is no such a thing as a "climate prediction". The IPCC is not in the "prediction" business, and it has never been. --- What climate models do is run "scenarios", "what-ifs", computations in which some parameters get changed, and everything else remains equal. That is a normal way of conducting risk analysis, but only if everybody keeps in mind that OF COURSE in the real world everything changes, and nothing remains equal. --- Climate models are therefore tools to probe risks and sensitivities, not crystal balls. As a matter of fact, they can't, won't and never will tell us anything precise about future weather, weeks, months, years or centuries in the future: just as no donkey will ever win the Kentucky Derby. --- That doesn't mean climate models (or donkeys) are useless: rather, they should be used for what they are worth using. --- So much has to be agreed by all, otherwise what are we discussing about, I do not know. And I invite Quirin Schiermeier to correct the article accordingly. Then and only then we can talk in a sensible fashion.