Yeah I legit thought this was for historical climate disasters not recent weather events. I love to research all of that stuff. There are a bunch of really good geology channels that get into catastrophic disasters like whatever happened in the Pacific Northwest scablands or whatever happened with the mass mega fauna extinction in North America 13,000 years ago. Also interesting how we are sitting on an island of warmth relative to the frozen recent history of our planet. We still are technically in an ice age and have had extremely stable temps for over 10,000 years. Spoiler I often think about how humans would have dealt with these wild or even catastrophic temperature swings since we’ve basically been as intelligent as we are now for the past few hundred thousand years. Those longer charts minimize how many wild swings exist within them. We don't even see the Bolling Allerod/Younger Dryas on that 500,000 year chart. Relatively recently we think we’ve discovered two catastrophic impacts with the Burckle crater impact 5000ish years ago and Carpentaria crater impact 1500 years ago. Even the "minor" Tunguska event would have been beyond devastating if it hit a major population center and it didn't even leave a crater! Then even just prior to that we had the Sahara Desert develop. From 5000 to 15000 years ago it was a massive green area filled with titanic lakes. Seems to be related to Milankovitch cycles which are kind of not really discussed much today in pop science, but extremely important over longer scales. Spoiler There's a whole bunch to get into with climate disasters that have occurred during the period of human civilization development that we keep discovering, but I don't think that's what rimrocker is looking for. I'll save that stuff for another thread I guess
That's better, robbie. But seriously, no joke, the couple of purely orange sky days we had in San Francisco were kind of terrifying at an animal level. Like, I just wanted to go dig a hole in the ground or hide under a shrub.
As a guy who responds to, studies, and teaches about disasters, I felt there was something needed beyond "random" disasters or weather. These aren't random, they affect people's lives and livelihoods, not just in my childhood area code, but everywhere. I do, however, find optimism in the sense that the more people make the connections, the more urgent actions we'll be able to take. The idea behind the thread is to pull it together in a factual way and separate it from the everyday plant explosions, car wrecks, and such. It should be looked at by everyone as something to be aware of, like investments, food prices, and good steak knives. It's now part of life and it affects us in ways that aren't always in plain sight. We're experiencing a massive collision of complex natural systems and complex human systems and nobody knows where all the linkages or breaking points are. We'll see how it goes. I'm content to let it die a gradual death and get buried beneath the waves of music, movies, and starlets if that's the consensus.
Thanks. That makes sense to me. If people are going to have "Let's talk stocks and investing," then it would make sense to track this stuff. But climate wise, we're entering a 500 year bear market of sorts.
So the smoke thing is a good example of what I'm after here. Canadian forests burning because of changes in jet stream and normal patterns brought on by climate change bring heavy smoke to the eastern states causing flight delays and increased public health problems. Incidentally, the last time there was a big deal about wildland fire smoke in New York was during the Big Burn of 1910 when smoke from the Idaho and Montana fires sent smoke all the way to the Hamptons and interfered with the summer parties. Even though it wasn't near the same amount of smoke as today, President Taft was not pleased. Nice readable book on the topic:
So there has to be more at work here than just climate change, else it would be a linear progression from 2020-2021-2022-2023, which it very much is not. What fraction is climate change, and what is the other factors (and what are they)? Also would be nice to see more historical data older than 2016 to give it some context. Sorry for nitpicking.
I don't think you can make any conclusions about climate change and fire per se. Natural Resources Canada has been pretty clear about that re: current fires. There's no trend as you say: http://nfdp.ccfm.org/en/data/fires.php and https://natural-resources.canada.ca...fires-insects-disturbances/forest-fires/13143
One of the strongest El Niños in recent history is about to hit. No idea if one can say there is a relation but it's something to note.
