Scientist tells U.S. Senate: Global Warming Not Causing More Wildfires – ‘To attribute this human-caused increase in fire risk to carbon dioxide emissions is simply unscientific’
Forestry professor David B. South of Auburn University says that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have nothing to do with the amount and size of wildfires. It’s largely forest management that determines the number and size of wildfires, not global warming. “Policy makers who halt active forest management and kill ‘green’ harvesting jobs in favor of a ‘hands-off’ approach contribute to the buildup of fuels in the forest,” South told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday. “This eventually increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires,” South said.
'Data suggest that extremely large megafires were 4-times more common before 1940,” South said, adding that “we cannot reasonably say that anthropogenic global warming causes extremely large wildfires.'
Government wildfire data shows that the scale of U.S. wildfires has decreased dramatically since 1930, when wildfires burned more than four times the amount of acreage burned in 2012. In 1930, wildfires consumed more than 50 million acres of land, but in 2012 wildfires only burnt up 9.2 million acres.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide concentrations were much lower in the 1940s (only 310 parts per million by volume), meaning global temperatures were cooler while wildfires were much more prevalent than today.
“These data suggest that extremely large megafires were 4-times more common before 1940,” South said, adding that “we cannot reasonably say that anthropogenic global warming causes extremely large wildfires.”
“However, in today’s world of climate alarmism, where accuracy doesn’t matter, I am not at all surprised to see many journalists spreading the idea that carbon emissions cause large wildfires,” South said.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/03/report-global-warming-not-causing-more-wildfires/#ixzz33bfKoUBy
