Expect More Intense Wildfires In A Warmer World

Gavin Schmidt: The Week in Weather Many people looking out the window this week, and anyone glancing at CNN, has been assaulted with images of terrifying weather - wildfires in Florida and California, the aftermath of a town-erasing tornado in Kansas, historic flooding along the Mississippi and Tropical Storm Andrea, which marked an early start to a 2007 tropical season that is predicted to be ferocious. The Daily Green News Editor Dan Shapley discussed the week's weather with Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a blogger for Real Climate, which aims to set straight misconceptions about climate change. While no weather event can be tied definitively to the changing climate, it is not incorrect to read certain weather events of harbingers of things to come, particularly when it comes to the intense wildfires ravaging California and Florida. Scientists believe wildfires will become more intense as the U.S. climate continues to reacts to the buildup of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The first thing to know about global warming is that it is real, and there is plenty of evidence for it - starting with the documented increase in average global temperature. But these intense and seemingly weird weather events, Schmidt said, can not be linked directly to climate change. "This is par for the course," Schmidt said. "Every season people will find interesting weather events, and I get asked a lot if it is related to global warming, and the answer is always the same. None of these individual events can be tied to global warming." Weather is weather and climate is climate. That is, climate is the statistical accumulation of weather data, so only weather trends that play out over time can indicate a climate trend. Beyond that, some weather events - like tornadoes - simply are not understood well enough to fit into existing climate models. So it's hard to say if warmer conditions here, or greater rainfall there will result in more frequent or intense tornadoes. With hurricanes, the situation is somewhat similar - as there is a robust and truly scientific debate ongoing about how warmer ocean temperatures will affect the frequency and intensity of tropical storms. These conclusions take nothing away from the immediacy of the fierce tornado that wiped Greensburg, Kan. off the map May 4, killing at least 13. The community gave up searching for survivors Wednesday. When it comes to linking climate and weather, the wildfires fit into a different category. True, the spark that ignites a wildfire could be a cigarette butt that has nothing to do with climate change, and the effect of a fire has perhaps more than anything to do with how many homes have been built in fire-prone areas. But global warming is creating conditions that make wildfires both more likely, and likely to be more intense, Schmidt said. Simply put, less snowpack in the mountains means less moisture in the valleys, which means more dry fuel when a fire is ignited. "If there is going to be a fire, there is going to be more fuel for those fires," Schmidt said. "So continentally, you can start to see that impacts on the wildfires that you can reasonably confidently attribute." To see photos contributed by The Daily Green Community to Weird Weather Watch, the photoblog of climate change, click here. To contribute your own photo, email photo@thedailygreen.com. More Week In Weather Posts Maple Syrup And Fall Foliage At Risk From Climate Change - June 1 David Wolfe: Fewer Fruit And Nut Trees In A Warmer World - May 25 David Wolfe: European Wine Grapes Get Unlikely Boost - May 18 Gavin Schmidt: Wildfires Linked To Global Warming - May 11