Wood Romances

Stossel's second video about climate myths has been published, continuing the shoddy journalism from Stossel and fake research from Lueken. Like my last post , I'll first show the flaws in their rhetorical strategy and then look at the individual myths. I'll then provide a bibliography of the research on each of these subjects so you can check up on me and see for yourself that the actual research does not support Stossel's claims. Rhetorical Strategy The same tactics of taking soundbites out of context continues here. In fact, Stossel reuses the "We don't have decades; we hardly have years" clip in this video. He also shows a soundbite from news story reporting that extreme drought conditions exist in the northeastern US, but he doesn't show that the story attributes that to climate change (as his "myth" 5 claims). And he's still enlisting the help of Linnea Lueken to give scientific credibility to his shoddy journalism. But he adds an ...

Relationship Between Temperature and Wildfire Frequency, Season Length and Spring Snowmelt This is part 2 of a two-part series on wildfires in the U.S. Here's part 1 , where I look at the evidence for how wildfires have increased in the U.S.   By all accounts the relationship between wildfires and climate change is complex. In fact, it's probably fair to say there are to some extent two competing trends globally. Warmer temperatures from increased GHGs lead to more water vapor in the atmosphere which should increase rainfall in some areas of the world. But in more arid climates, like in the western U.S., warmer temperatures can increase aridity. Increased vapor pressure deficit (VPD) leads to decreases in soil moisture; plants dry out and become flammable more quickly, so wildfires can ignite and spread more quickly. This is not to say that AGW actually starts wildfires. Sources of ignition are still predominantly human behavior (as in carelessness with cigarettes and camp fire...

This is part 1 of a three-part series on wildfires in the western U.S. Here's part 2 , where I delve into more of the geographical statistics on unprotected lands. And here's part 3 , where I examine the evidence regarding the impact AGW is having on wildfires in the American West. The above graph above shows the increase in western U.S. wildfire acres burned since 1984 as well as the amount of increase that is estimated to be due to climate change. The paper it comes from[1] estimates that climate change has roughly doubled the acres burned in the western U.S. beyond what we would be experiencing without climate change. The reasoning here is complex, but what I want to do in this post is talk about the statistics themselves. The above graph comes from data published in a peer-reviewed paper[1] and shows up in the 4th National Climate Assessment,[9] but it has been heavily criticized for cherry picking.[7] We're told if we go back to the early 20th century, we'll get a ...