With the season heating up, why not give the fires their own thread? Will they be bad enough to affect beef production? The SW water problems?
I don't know, but 3 million acres seems a lot.
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/28/g-s1-130737/wildfires-utah-colorado-firefighter-deaths-snyder
The biggest blaze is the Cottonwood Fire, burning in rugged terrain in southern Utah's Beaver County, which has grown to more than 144 square miles and remains entirely uncontained. It is currently the largest wildfire burning anywhere in the United States.
Excellent topic and thread!
More shortly.
Before doing my search for the best links to display this, I'll make some initial comments on this great topic.
1. Climate change IS increasing the intensity of wildfires for certain IN THE UNITED STATES WEST. CO2 is a beneficial gas that is greening up the planet and massively increasing crop yields/food production. Basically an increase of every 5 parts per million equates to an increase of around 1% in foliage. Going from around 290 ppm to 430 ppm is +140 ppm that equates to +28% more foliage. Since all animals eat plants or something that ate plants, this is a wonderful blessing.
But NOT when it comes to wildfires. More foliage = more fuel. Also, woody stemmed plants(trees) have the most accelerated growth of all. Many trees are growing 50% faster than they were 100+ years ago because of climate change, mainly from the added CO2. This is good for regrowing forests (harvested for timber for instance or destroyed from a wildfire) but this is MORE FUEL for a wild fire.
2. The United States West is one of the places heating up the most from the increase in CO2 because the air masses are so dry to begin with. Humid places are not heating up as much because the radiation absorption bands for CO2 are already partly saturated by the H2O.
Why the Forcing from Carbon Dioxide Scales as the Logarithm of Its Concentration
https://romps.berkeley.edu/papers/pubdata/2020/logarithmic/20logarithmic.pdf
The radiation absorption bands of CO2 are almost saturated in the warm/humid areas of the planet because they overlap with the H2O absorption bands. This is why the warming has mostly been in the higher latitudes.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Longwave_Absorption_Coefficients_of_H2O_and_CO2.svg
You can see the overlap in the chart above. There is a LIMIT to how much radiation any absorption band can absorption band can absorb up to 100%. If it's saturated by H2O already, you can add as much CO2 as you want but that absorption band will not absorb any more heat radiation.
This is why the coldest (DRIEST) places in the Northern Hemisphere are heating up the most, in the coldest times of year...........and the deserts that are the driest.
The pattern below shows that its the very high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere that are being warmed the most by a wide margin. (the coldest places in the coldest times of year).
This is what the temperature changes/anomalies look like from global warming the past 140 years. Highest latitudes warming the most because the cold, DRY air doesn't have much H2O to saturate the radiationabsorptionbands compared to the warm, humid areas, where those absorptionbands are often nearly saturated from H2O which overlaps with the CO2 absorptionbands.
This video doesn't show the warming in the dry West very well but I'll find additional data that does show that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBG2IIbwbA
3. For every +1 Deg C of warming, the atmosphere can hold around 7% more moisture. With saturated air masses like the one that just dumped 8" of rain at our house in 72 hours, we might speculate that means 7% more rain in 2026 or +.56 more compared to 7.44 in 1926.
All things are definitely NOT equal and this is a great discussion that explains why. In the dry West, there might be more moisture in the air but the elevated temperatures cause a LOWER relative humidity making it harder to saturate the air in order to make rain!
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-investigating-climate-changes-humidity-paradox/
So the point above is that the total moisture is increasing in most places but to get moisture to come out as rain, you often need to SATURATE the air mass. At 1 deg. C warmer the air can hold 7% MORE moisture but if it only has 4% more moisture in it, then it's 3% LESS saturated. This can actually reduce marginal rain events but increase rain amounts of SATURATED air masses. If there's something we know with certainty, a warmer atmosphere, all things being equal will INCREASE rain amounts in many of the saturated air rain events, which are the extreme/heaviest ones.
Larry started a great discussion for some of the same areas back when they were having an incredible March heat wave.
Historic SW US March heatwave
48 responses |
Started by WxFollower - March 18, 2026, 12:24 a.m.
There are small wildfires all over the world this summer.
The Balkans - where a landfill fire somehow made the news in Manila - https://beta.manilatimes.net/2026/06/29/world/heatwave-shifts-grip-to-balkans-sparking-wildfires/2374795
And Florida, where they're all over the place hoping for rain -
https://www.fdacs.gov/Forest-Wildfire/Wildland-Fire/Current-Wildfire-Information
(Red is active, brown contained - interactive map is at https://ffs.firesponse.com/public/ )
Thanks, patrick!
Here are some sources to get the latest fire data and predictions.
https://www.nifc.gov/modules/custom/nicc_outlooks/images/outlook_d1.png
https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/maps
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https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-100.0,40.0,4.0z
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Previous threads on this topic:
Canadian Wildfires
Started by metmike - June 1, 2025, 9:57 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/112260/
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Deceptive use of data
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/110157/#110162
Wildfires, for instance. Below is the data going back 100 years.
Can you guess when the media and message gatekeepers start their graphs?
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/102493/#102564
https://www.cfact.org/2017/10/17/fires-far-worse-last-century/
metmike: You guessed right below:
by Climate Central (metmike: a climate alarmist information site)
https://www.climatesignals.org/resources/graph-large-wildfires-increasing-across-west
According to this graph, data before 1970 didn't exist...because data before that time frame CONTRADICTS the false narrative they want portrayed.
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California fires
Started by metmike - Jan. 10, 2025, 11:49 a.m. https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/109456/
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Canadian Wildfires
Started by metmike - May 14, 2024, 9:59 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/103995/
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2023 Canadian wild fires still burning
Started by cutworm - Feb. 25, 2024, 10:05 p.m. https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/102493/
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Air quality/Wildfires in E.Canada 6-28-23
8 responses |
Started by metmike - June 28, 2023, 1:29 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/96802/
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Wildfires in Canada
29 responses |
Started by metmike - May 19, 2023, 4:53 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/95312/
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fire tornadoes/whirls
Started by metmike - Sept. 9, 2023, 7:15 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/98842/
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Part 2, Hawaii wildfire: CC/drought 8-17-23
Started by metmike - Aug. 17, 2023, 7:23 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/98328/
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Hawaii wildfire at Lahaina (on Maui): CC blamed as a factor
42 responses |
Started by WxFollower - Aug. 10, 2023, 11:46 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/98093/
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Western Wildfires are back
Started by metmike - July 14, 2023, 11:06 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/97269/
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Re: July 2023 global temperature/science
By metmike - July 10, 2023, 11:41 p.m.
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/11/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-wildfires-roger-pielke-jr/
As we have come to expect from Roger, this is another thorough, well researched and objective analysis. He makes the following points:
You can read the full analysis here.
There are over a dozen additional links in the story at the first link below.
https://www.cfact.org/2017/10/17/fires-far-worse-last-century/
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Cliff Mass is a solid source for authentic, objective science data:
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/08/california-wildfires-is-global-warming.html
Note what happened in the 1930's during the Dust Bowl years in the Plains/Midwest when the drought extended across much of the country for much of the time.......all the way to the West Coast:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/17/fire/
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Now good science demands of research, and must also account for changes in human caused ignitions before correlating summer temperatures with the increase ignitions.
Real Manmade Wildfires
Started by metmike - Nov. 21, 2021, 10:44 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/78164/
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Re: Re: Re: Real Manmade Wildfires
By metmike - Nov. 21, 2021, 10:55 p.m.
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Previous discussions on this:
West Coast/Oregon fires
12 responses |
Started by metmike - Sept. 12, 2020, 2:48 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/59043/
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California governor blames wildfires on climate 'emergency'
33 responses |
Started by metmike - Sept. 14, 2020, 12:08 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/59093/
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Re: Re: Drought/Heat out west to N.Plains-La Nina
By metmike - Aug. 15, 2021, 12:13 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/73659/#73661
We know what caused this.
Not man made climate change/global warming as you've been told but the complete opposite. COOL waters and a La Nina signature(cooling waters) in the East/Central tropical Pacific, that started showing up in Spring 2020.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What I've learned about ‘Climate Change’ (in summary)
By madmechanic - Aug. 3, 2021, 2:30 p.m.
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Re: Re: Re: What I've learned about ‘Climate Change’ (in summary)
By metmike - Aug. 4, 2021, 8:30 p.m.
That's a ton of stuff but it's basically a compilation of most previous threads/posts on this topic so that I don't need to do all that research over again to provide enlightenment.
As I mentioned from the get go, there are several elements to climate change which increase wild fire intensity in the Western United States, especially from the increase in foliage from human emissions of CO2.
Is it be better to have almost 30% more food for all the creatures on the planet or to reduce wildfires in the United States West????
We should note that the more important one never makes the headlines.
I dunno, but using charts that shows a steady fall in acres burned from 1930-1950 and ignoring the changes in firefighting over that period & since to compare it to current conditions strikes me as more than a bit suss.
Thanks very much patrick!
Actually, that was the entire point. It's called adaptation using technology.
This is also the reason for much of this chart
This is a logarithmic chart below. The drop in tornado deaths, is more than just 50% less violent tornadoes in the warmer climate.
It's the Storm Prediction Center's outlooks, days ahead of the event and watches many hours before the threat. The local NWS, armed with Doppler radars that can see the wind and tornado formations(mesocyclones), with tornado warnings 30 minutes BEFORE the tornado hits.
They can't STOP the tornadoes or the damage though like we can with fire fighting.
Climate change has helped REDUCE tornado deaths, along with technology. I'll show you why.
Many people site the big increase in reported tornadoes in the last 35 years as being caused by a climate crisis. This is false. Almost all the increase is being caused by the technology to detect them. Better spotter network but improving radar technology, especially the quantum leap better with NEXRAD Doppler radars installed around the country that can actually SEE the wind and SEE, even the weakest tornadoes that previously went undetected and unreported because they touched down in rural areas or in the dark.
Look at the graph below. There has been a huge increase in the weakest EF0 and EF1 tornadoes, with the EF0 count LEAPING higher exactly when the NEXRAD radars were installed!
Amazingly, the stronger tornadoes, that kill most of the people actually went down from climate change(weaker cold fronts and jet streams, less steep temperature gradient from the highest latitudes warming the most).
I borrowed this guys graph below but his attempt to see a climate crisis fingerprint is completely blinding him and resulting in his ridiculous attempt to explain the huge jump up in the EF0 and EF1 tornadoes.
I'm not just a meteorologist/atmospheric scientist but you can see how I cover severe weather events with the dozens of threads here and have been doing it for decades. This guy is like many others that want to believe in a climate crisis. He's a pretty smart guy that understands some things about science. He has this blog site with impressive graphics and HIS interpretation of something that, in reality he is clueless about. He's probably nice guy with a sincere (but biased/uneducated) on this topic that makes people DUMBER when they read it.
But who would know that?
Probably not 98% of his readers. This is exactly what I try to battle on MarketForum.
This is the statistic for strong/violent tornadoes. The ones that were NOT missed in the past because or their extensive damage. The ones that kill the most people!
We know the physical reason for this drop and it's a benefit of global warming!
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/05/recent-tornadoes-are-due-to-unusually-cold-weather/
This is what the temperature changes/anomalies look like from global warming the past 140 years. Highest latitudes warming the most because the cold, DRY air doesn't have much H2O to saturate the radiation absorption bands compared to the warm, humid areas, where those absorption bands are nearly saturated from H2O which overlaps with the CO2 absorption bands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBG2IIbwbA
Well, 2024:48 & 2025:41 break the F3 trend.
I'm curious about the measurement tools. With hurricanes, they used radar in the 1950s and for a few years it ran high. Now they fly over them and drop something in. 1950 got reanalyzed from 243 ACE to 211. Is anybody looking back at tornados the same way? There are crazy people who like chasing tornados, but how do they get speeds? "It just blew away 3 trailers and a cow! Must be blowing 211.7 MPH"?
Outstanding question, Patrick!
I actually flew into Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
The apples apples metric for hurricanes today to a century ago is LAND FALLING.
We had Hurricane Hunters in the 1940s but was the start of the satellite era in the 1970's that allowed us to see almost ALL the smaller tropical systems that were missed before then.
Re: Re: 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Forecast
By metmike - May 31, 2026, 5:51 p.m.
On tornadoes, the NWS will go out there with a trained survey team within a couple of days of the damage. They use the magnitude of damage and the damage pattern to accurately report on the path and strength. They are really good at it too.
Damage Surveys
https://www.weather.gov/ama/damagesurveys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Fujita_scale
| EFU | Unknown | No surveyable damage |
|---|---|---|
| EF0 | 65–85 mph | Light damage |
| EF1 | 86–110 mph | Moderate damage |
| EF2 | 111–135 mph | Considerable damage |
| EF3 | 136–165 mph | Severe damage |
| EF4 | 166–200 mph | Devastating damage |
| EF5 | >200 mph | Incredible damage |
...
It's tough to do an apples to apples comparison for 2026 to the past on wildfires too because much has changed.
For sure the factors I mentioned from the get go are contributing to worse Wildfires in the West but the cooler climate and lower CO2 levels in the past actually caused MORE droughts and more long lasting SEVERE droughts. That sounds nuts, only because we've all been taught the exact opposite.
The authentic, weather, climate and science data don't lie!
3 separate Dust Bowls in the 1800's in the OLD climate, much of it BECAUSE of that climate and lower CO2 levels. Climate change is protecting much of the United States from Dust Bowls. The West, not as much.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Death by GREENING!
By metmike - Feb. 2, 2025, 7:54 a.m.
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Even deserts are greening up!!!!
https://phys.org/news/2013-07-greening-co2.html
This makes trying to compare 2026 with 1876 impossible with so many different factors discussed here.
The biggest one is our technology and ability to fight fires but at the same time, technology CAUSES some fires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility-caused_wildfires
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https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1hz6mzv/cause_of_the_eaton_fire_caught_on_video_and/
I was underneath the final gasps of Gloria.
It didn't live up to the hype, but lots of people had fun dancing.
https://youtu.be/nNEb2k_EmMg?t=7
Good one, patrick!
One of the funny things about our 8 hour flight.
I was a media guest, chief meteorologist from WEHT-TV in Evansville IN, along with my photographer, Dan Monohan. .
There were 2 other media guests were the chief meteorologist from a tv station in Pittsburgh, PA and his photographer.
We thought it was funny that we were so far from the coastlines which get hit by hurricanes.
It was all about ratings. Our news director at the time, Jon Ester, during WW2 had flown with the hurricane hunters as a Morse Code operator, which is how they communicated back then.
He still had some contacts. I used to do the Noon, 5, 6 and 10 pm shows. I came in the morning when Gloria hit 150 mph and was the strongest hurricane ever at that point and mentioned it to him, having no idea about his background.
He came back with a shocker "How would you like to fly into Gloria". What a shocker. Of course I would.
He went into his office and 30 minutes later had all the arrangements made, including the flights using commercial jets to get there and back.
Deb and I had just married the month prior (August 10, 1985) and she was petrified.
The plane before us came back early after it was hit by lightning and damaged. I felt zero fear, instead being pumped up on adrenaline.
The amount of turbulence was nothing anybody, other than being on flights like this would ever experience.
My photog. upchucked 3 different times. When I interviewed 1 of the pilots and asked him how he flies under such conditions, he admitted to losing control numerous times while flying but that he was trained to get control back and with plenty of time to do it being a mile+ off the ground.
They told me stories about guys not being strapped in their seat belts, flying up and hitting the ceiling from an intense downdraft. A couple of times they had to return early to get them medical treatment (teeth knocked out and a fractured jaw).
Most of the time though, the pilot could see the turbulence ahead and warn everybody to have their seat belts on.
I got in trouble a few times for not staying strapped in because I wanted to go from one side of the planet to the other to see the cloud formations on both sides.
1 time, an updraft hit and I went from standing to being on my knees in less than a second.
Great experience. I wish I could go back and thank Jon Ester today for giving me that unique opportunity.
Ahh, Gloria sung (not written) by Laura Branigan! Another great and memorable song from decades ago, when music was sooooo much better to me. Sung with so much emotion! And a beautiful woman to boot.
The Hurricane Hunters never seem to mention how rough it is.
But sounds fun!!
I think that the fires and drought in Nebraska earlier this year probably did moer harm to the cattle heard than the current fires in the Great Basin. just my 2 cents
I’ll link you to some great stories from meteorologists that flew into hurricanes that are pretty crazy.
One of them is from Jeff Masters that was a classmate at the University of Michigan And went on numerous flights.
Hurricane Hugo was an especially dangerous storm!
Thanks, cutworm. I remember you making that point earlier this year.
I bookmarked a link that tracks all the fires in the US -https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn
Updated today, Utah & Colorado are still the only really big ones.
I hear this is a big weekend for fireworks.
Thanks, patrick!
This is the 2nd most acres burned in those last 10 years!
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-1
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-2
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-3
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-4
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-5
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-6
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-7
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-8
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/hunting-hugo-part-9
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Most amazing for me is that I actually did this 1 time in Hurricane Gloria in September 1985 and the main reason was that Gloria, at the time with 150 mph winds was the strongest hurricane ever measured! If I had read a story like the one above first, my complete lack of fear before and during our flight would have NOT been the case.
With regards to wildfires. Extremely complicated information. One HUGE problem is that both sides have a position and agenda that trumps their mentality when presenting authentic, objective science!
1 side wants to convince us that current wildfires are unprecedented in every way, shape and form, so they only give us information that supports that.
The other side wants us to see the LONG TERM record, which does show it REALLY WAS worse 100 years ago in some realms and that means that climate change is having NO IMPACT. I started this thread with my opinion, using science to discuss why that is NOT TRUE.
Good(biased) discussion here:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/the-mysterious-wildfire-chart/
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Contrast that with this discussion that makes it's own unique points.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
New research analyzed tree rings and fire scars to compare modern fires to those in the past
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/fewer-forest-fires-burn-north-america-today-past-and-thats-bad-thing
At least around here, the Heat Dome included rain every night. Trying to burn hickory & maple on the 4th, I eventually went to a few drops of acetone as a starter because even paper didn't burn.
Burgers turned out fine.
New fires, all west of the Rockies. 2 established burns in Utah & 1 in Colorado pushing 100,000 acres.
https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn
