Global Warming Blamed For EU Wildfires
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Now why am I not surprised?
Exclusive: The number of forest fires in the EU has trebled so far this year, according to figures obtained by Euronews, affecting an area nearly the size of Luxembourg.
There have been 677 blazes in 2017 – a huge increase on the 215 the bloc saw annually on average over the previous eight years.
Experts have blamed climate change for the rise, saying it has extended the traditional wildfire season and increased the frequency of blazes.
They have warned Europe’s forest fires will rage more often in the future and engulf new areas.
Portugal, Italy and Croatia have battled blazes in recent days amid high temperatures and lower-than-normal rainfall.
It comes less than a month since 64 people died in a forest fire in Portugal, with many victims caught in their cars as they tried to flee.
http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/26/how-europe-s-wildfires-have-more-than-trebled-in-2017
Now you’re no doubt way ahead of me here!
Apparently, the last eight years is the “normal climate”, and 2017 is the new.
Joe, being a suspicious little devil, thought he would check why they used the last eight years as a baseline, and discovered why.
This is the official data from the European Environment Agency, published last November:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/burnt-forest-area-in-five-1#tab-dashboard-01
The number of fires since 1980 peaked in the 1990s, and have been relatively low in the last few years.
The trend on burnt acreage is even more stark, showing consistent decline since the 1980s.
I wonder what they’ll blame on global warming next?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Jeremy Corbyn?
These fraudsters have no shame. Lies piled upon lies.
It’s now endemic, the new normal. Truth out the window, say what’s needed to get the job done. 1984 is here.
Spain has an historic and ongoing problem with wildfires. There was a big increase here in the 1980’s because the law allowed burned areas to be automatically classified as available for urban development, so developers would deliberately start fires. That law has been rescinded but there is still an option for the local authority to take it. A second problem has been deliberate burning in order to provide work for retained firefighters. I’m not sure how they’ve got around that. Then there’s the arsonists; the majority of fires in Spain are deliberately started. Finally, there’s the longstanding mismanagement of woodland inasmuch as brush should be burned off regularly in order to avoid intense fires. If this is not done, the heat from the brush will destroy mature trees. None of which has anything whatsoever to do with climate change.
Gotta love the “Experts have blamed climate change for the rise, …..”
If they were ‘experts’, they’d be aware The European Forest Fire Information System attributes “95.3% of fires in the European Mediterranean region are caused by humans”
Click to access Presentation_The%20European%20Forest%20Fire%20Information%20System.pdf
One nameless wag suggested the claimed ‘rise’ might in fact be more-attributable to the very recent influx of diverse populations to the affected areas.
The fires around the Riviera are currently in the news, with the Indie reportin:
“French Rivieria wildfires: Two teenage boys arrested on suspicion of starting destructive blazes”
It continues …. “The official also said a 41-year-old man has admitted to accidentally starting the wildfire in Peynier with a metal-cutting device.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-riviera-wildfires-two-teenage-boys-16-year-old-arson-destructive-evacuation-corsica-a7864411.html
I was on the Iles de Lerins, off Cannes, during a violent period of fires which swept down to the coast,sometime in the early 1980s. The special, yellow, planes swept down, flew through the surface of the sea to scoop up water, and then, two minutes later, bombed the country behind the resorts, making sure Cannes did not burn. Of course, Thatcher had not started banging the drum* about Global Warming then.
*I am the only trained scientist here. Let me show you other leaders how ignorant you about what is important in the world!
A lack of rainfall and high temperatures can produce droughts and forest fires. Droughts can become so extensive that they can grip the entire globe. An example is the global drought of 1876-1879, which struck China, India, Australia, South Africa, Morocco, French Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies, Turkey, Brazil, the United States and Canada. During 1876-1879 over 16 million people starved to death. (World population has grown 5 fold since the 1870s. An equivalent lost today would be in the order of 84 million people.) The drought not only affected crops but also livestock. In Australia, 10 million sheep died.
Another example is the period 1783-1785. The regions affected included: Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Turkestan, Korea, China, Japan and Mexico.
— In 1783, a famine in Iceland killed 1/5th the population.
— There were major crop failures in Finland between the years 1783-1785.
— In 1783, Scania, the southmost part of Sweden and also known as “the granary of Sweden”, experience a famine.
— In 1784-1785, there was a severe drought in England, France, Italy and Spain.
— In 1784 or 1785, the entire potato crop of the Lothians [region of the Scottish Lowlands] was devastated.
— In 1784-1785, a famine in Tunisia, in North Africa killed up to 1/5th of its population. Tripoli, Libya in North Africa experienced famine in 1784.
— In 1784-1785, there was a severe drought (insufficient Nile River inundation) and great famine in Egypt. Egypt lost 1/6th of its population.259 The population of Egypt at that time was around 2.5 million; therefore the famine claimed around 420,000 lives.
— In 1784, a famine struck Syria.
— A severe drought and great famine took place in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India in the years 1780- 1784. Accounts are detailed in the main chronology. The famine in North India called the Chalisa famine of 1783-84 and the one a year earlier in South India killed approximately 11 million people.
— In 1785 in the region of the Duab Mountains in Turkestan, there was a great famine. “Whole bodies have been eaten by dogs and vultures.”
— A famine also struck Korea. In 1784, around 500,000 people died in Korea from famine. In reviewing the Korean annuals there were 13 reports concerning famine or famine relief or court comments about famine in 1782; 18 reports in 1783; and 16 in 1784.
— In 1784-1785, there were severe droughts in China.
— The Great Tenmei famine took place in Japan from 1782-1788. It was the deadliest famine in the early modern period of Japan. The population decreased by 920,000 people across Japan due to the famine and the plague epidemic that accompanied it between the years 1780 & 1786. The population of Japan was 26.01 million in 1780, 25.09 million in 1786 and 24.89 million in 1792. The damage was particularly severe in Mutsu Province.
— In 1785-1786, there was a severe drought and famine in Mexico. This famine was caused by 2 years of drought combined with severe frosts in the summer of 1785. The famine killed nearly 15% of the Bajío’s population. [The Bajío is the lowland region of Central Mexico.]
Reference: http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/A_Chronological_Listing_of_Early_Weather_Events.pdf
Thank you for that information, stored for future reference.
Seconded.
So does the global warming alter the brain chemistry of the malicious arsonists and make them do it? Even if fires had increased, it would be more to do with their being more people and hence more idiots, than the weather.
If an “expert” is found confidently explaining a non-fact, that makes him an “ex–expert.”
I’ve been keeping an eye on the temperature map of Europe over the summer and it seems pretty average if not relatively cool aside from some sporadic heatwaves in Mediterranean areas from time which are par for the course for this time of the year. The temperatures around the south of France are not particularly hot and in fact the fires were fuelled by a wind that was described in several reports as relatively cold but dry. To suggest that exceptionally high temperatures are responsible is not just dishonest it is deliberately so.
Down here in the South East of France (Var) they are mainly being blamed on arsonists, two sixteen year olds have been arrested already. The fires are starting away from places where people go or smoke or light bbq’s. A fire hydrant was smashed ten days before a firestarter in one area. There haven’t been any lightning strikes or storms to cause them. Up in the mountains away from the coast and the population there seems to be no problem, despite the pines and dry conditions. In passing, it is amusing to know that the trees causing the greatest danger are not native and were planted at the behest of Napoleon to provide masts for sailing ships.
Many thanks to James Marusek. I have been looking for something on climate in the Late Roman period and what are called the Dark Ages, for a long time.
My background is Archaeology and I have an interest in that period in Britain.
By now everyone should be aware that Hi Temperatures, Low Temperature, Lack of Rain, Excess Rain, too Dry, too Wet, too Hot, too Cold, no Wind, High Wind, No Hurricane, many Hurricanes, etc., are all due to Global Warming and Climate Change. The Science is settled! Sarcastic as heck!
Don’t forget, also:
More sea-ice in Antarctica (until it went the other way, last year!) and less sea-ice in the Arctic have the same cause. Less snow in Greenland, more Snow in Greenland.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse get hay for their nags from Big Oil.
So, that’s it then: arson is caused by climate change.
Add it to the list.
The only thing these “experts” are expert in is lying.
Goebels would be proud of these evil jerks.
‘Portugal, Italy and Croatia have battled blazes in recent days amid high temperatures and lower-than-normal rainfall.’
Therefore the current conditions are the exception, not the rule or the trend. Nobody can say whether ‘higher temperatures and lower rainfall’ will become ‘normal’ in these areas but it’s not so now.
– – –
‘There have been 677 blazes in 2017 – a huge increase on the 215 the bloc saw annually on average over the previous eight years.’
Again, stating the obvious but one season is not a trend. Trying to extrapolate a trend from one season is the act of a propagandist, not an expert.
http://www.breadandbutterscience.comA_Chronological_Listing_of_Early_Weather_Events.pdf Some detail.
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/A_Chronological_Listing_of_Early_Weather_Events.pdf Apolgies, link was wrong.Some detail.
“I wonder what they’ll blame on global warming next?”
The sky’s the limit – Islamist terrorism, England losing the last test match, the Grenfell tower fire, difficult Brexit negotiations, civil wars in Africa, the election result, the next financial crash etc., etc.. With such a convenient whipping boy, the green lobby sees no need for reasoned thought and, given that the gullible young are gaining in political influence, why should it?
Hope springs eternal:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Spherical-tokamak-to-put-fusion-power-in-grid-by-2030-30011702.html
The full stanza is without hope:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never IS but always TO BE blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Pope
Two of Australia’s exports to the world are gum trees (Eucalyptus species) and bushfire. Wherever our gum trees are planted, intense wildfire has followed: Portugal, Spain, California etc. Eucalypts are the elephant in the room.
Portugal has approximately 647,000 ha (over 1.5 million acres) of eucalypt plantations for pulp-wood. The exotic Tasmanian Blue Gum is now the most abundant tree in Portugal, both in plantations and growing wild, covering about 7% of the land area, along with one of our Wattyl Trees (Acacia species) as an understorey to the eucalypts.
They are both full of volatile oils and burn fiercely. In a fire the oils are driven out of the leaves and will burn above the trees at flame heights of over 200 feet above the burning forest. Eucalypt fires also “spot” ahead of the fire front, causing multiple blazes 10 or 15 km away. Given the right weather combination, large eucalypt fires can form flame tornadoes that wreak further havoc. I doubt Europeans have seen anything like that. Pine resin is nowhere near as flammable as eucalyptus oil.
They have no idea what they have imported and no idea how to deal with the resultant bush fires because they are neither accustomed to them nor adequately set up to fight them. Forgive me, but to an Aussie, European fire-fighting efforts look puny and laughable. Australia for instance, has 70,000 volunteer bushfire fighters, fully trained and well-equipped with specialised trucks, in addition to the professional fire fighters. We have water-bombing helicopters on standby; we mobilise local contractors with water tankers, dozers and graders to cut fire-breaks etc. We have an extensive bushfire bureaucracy of managers, planners, meteorologists, manpower specialists, logistics specialists, fire behaviour specialists, communications operators etc that back up the field teams. Even with those resources, fires get away from us. We prepare for fire every spring and fight fires every summer, some on a scale unimaginable in Europe. One individual fire a few years back burnt out 500,000 hectares (5,000km2 or over 1.2 million acres) of national park.
It is the presence of Eucalypts, not climate change, which has changed the fire regime towards more intense blazes in at least some Mediterranean countries. Eucalypts = fire.
Reblogged this on WeatherAction News and commented:
Climate change responsible for forest fires, tornadoes and US landfall hurricanes….just less of them. Crank up the gas!!!
The definition of expert that seems to apply:-
Ex = has-been
spurt = drip under pressure