Roger Coppock wrote:

Expert: Warming Climate Fuels Mega-Fires
Scott Pelley Reports From The American West's
Fire Lines On The Rising Number Of Mega-Fires
Oct 21, 2007 CBS News

[ . . . ]

The severity of the burning and size of the
fires caught the eye of Tom Swetnam, one of the
world's leading fire ecologists. He wanted to
know what's touched off this annual inferno and
whether it's truly a historic change.

At the University of Arizona, Swetnam keeps a
remarkable woodpile, comprised of the largest
collection of tree rings in the world. His rings
go back 9,000 years, and each one of those rings
captures one year of climate history.

Swetnam found recent decades have been the
hottest in 1,000 years. And recently, he and a
team of top climate scientists discovered
something else: a dramatic increase in fires
high in the mountains, where fires were rare.

"As the spring is arriving earlier because of
warming conditions, the snow on these high
mountain areas is melting and running off. So
the logs and the branches and the tree needles
all can dry out more quickly and have a longer
time period to be dry. And so there's a longer
time period and opportunity for fires to start,"
Swetnam says

"The spring comes earlier, so the fire season is
just longer," Pelley remarks.

"That's right. The fire season in the last 15
years or so has increased more than two months
over the whole Western U.S. So actually 78 days
of average longer fire season in the last 15
years compared to the previous 15 or 20 years,"
Swetnam says.

Swetnam says that climate change -- global
warming -- has increased temperatures in the
West about one degree and that has caused four
times more fires. Swetnam and his colleagues
published those findings in the journal
"Science," and the world's leading researchers
on climate change have endorsed their
conclusions.

[ . . . ]

"We used to have forest soil here that might
have been this deep," he says, indicating about
a foot of depth, "but now we're just down to
rock."

"So you're down to mineral and sort of a rock,
sort of armored soil. And that is not a good
habitat for trees to re-establish," Swetnam
says.

"Where do you think all this is headed?" Pelley
asks,

"As fires continue to burn, these mega-fires
continue to burn, we may see ultimately a
majority, maybe more than half of the forest
land converting to other forest, other types of
ecosystems," Swetnam says.

"Wait a minute. Did you just say that there's a
reasonable chance we could lose half of the
forests in the West?" Pelley asks.

"Yes, within some decades to a century, as
warming continues, and we continue to get large
scale fires," Swetnam replies.

Swetnam says that this is what we have to look
forward to. He estimates, in the Southwest
alone, nearly two million acres of forest are
gone and won't come back for centuries. The
hotshots are already planning for the next fire
season. In 2006, the feds spent $2 billion on
fire fighting, seven times more than just ten
years ago.

"You know, there are a lot of people who don't
believe in climate change," Pelley remarks.

"You won't find them on the fire line in the
American West anymore," Tom Boatner says.
"'Cause we've had climate change beat into us
over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what
we're seeing, and we're dealing with a period of
climate, in terms of temperature and humidity
and drought that's different than anything
people have seen in our lifetimes."


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3380176.shtml

Roger, you are not being very fair and balanced
are you. You forgot to mention two things. You
forgot to mention the benefits of warming and you
failed to address the horrors of what a cooling
climate could bring. You also, as always, rule
out climate change as being a natural process and
instead insist all warming is AGW.

On Saturday October 13, 2007 1:43:53 pm, Roger
Coppock Wrote:

"Nothing in global warming theory predicts an
apocalypse. That's not even a good strawman
argument."

If the AGWers want something new to worry about,
they can worry about Global Cooling instead - or
also.

Following is an article by Josie Glausiusz which
appears in the October, 2007 issue of "Discover
Magazine"


"A COLD LOOK AT WAR

THE STUDY "Climate Change and War Frequency in
Eastern China Over the Last Millennium," by David
Zhang et al., published in the August 2007 issue
of Human Ecology.

THE MOTIVE In a study of more than 900 years of
conflict in eastern China, a team of researchers
has tested the hypothesis that cold spells fuel
the social instability that leads to war.

THE METHODS Earth scientist David Zhang of the
University of Hong Kong and his colleagues
consulted a multivolume compendium, "The
Tabulation of Wars in Ancient China", which
records wars in China between 800 B.C. and A.D.
1911.**They*focused*on*the*899*wars*that*took
place between the years 1000 and 1911 in densely
populated eastern China.
**The*researchers*then*compared*the*historical
record with climate data for the same period.**In
the past decade, paleoclimatologists have
reconstructed a record of climate change over the
millennium by consulting historical documents and
examining indicators of temperature change like
tree rings, as well as oxygen isotopes in ice
cores and coral skeletons.**By*combining*data
from multiple studies, Zhang and his colleagues
identified six major cycles of warm and cold
phases from 1000 to 1911. The team then tabulated
the frequency of wars and grouped them into three
classes: very high (more than 30 wars per
decade), high (15 to 30 wars per decade), and low
(fewer than 15 wars per decade.)**All*four
decades of "very high" warfare, as well as most
periods of "high" conflict, coincided with cold
phases.**The*link*was*most*pronounced*in*the
south, perhaps because of its greater population
density as well as southern migration due to the
cold.
**Two*especially*frigid*periods*(1448-1487)*and
(1583-1717) stand out.**During*the*first*period,
many regions of china suffered huge famines, and
authorities of the Ming dynasty quashed
rebellions in numerous provinces.**At*the
beginning of the second cold era, heavy rains and
sever floods devastated agricultural production,
and during the subsequent famine people were
forced to eat tree bark and even seeds from the
excrement of wild geese.**Later,*between*1620*and
1640, earth's temperature fell to its lowest
point since the beginning of the millennium.**In*
china, major floods followed extreme droughts, and
frequent famines led to mass starvation and
death.**In*1644,*a*peasand*rebel*leader*marched
into the capital and captured Beijing,**Finally,
a Manchu invasion ended the Ming regime.

THE MEANING During warm periods, Zhang explains,
populations increased, but the conditions brought
on by cold phases--shorter growing seasons, less
land available for cultivation, a shortage of
forage for domestic animals, and lower
agriculture yields--could not sustain them.**The
shortages fueled peasant unrest, which
destabilized regimes.**Nearly*all*China's
dynastic changes too place during the cold
spells.
**Zhang*believes*his*work*has*relevance*for*a
warming world.**Global*temperatures*are*expected
to rise faster and faster in the future, and our
expanded population may be unable to adapt to the
ecological changes.**"Animals*can*adapt*to
climate change, mainly by relying on migration,
depopulation--which consists of starvation and
cannibalism--and dietary change," he explains.
"Human beings have more adaptive choices and
social mechanisms, such as birth control, trade,
and scientific innovation.**Some*of*these*social
mechanisms are good for humanity and some are
bad, such as war.**The*war*is*just*like*the
cannibalism of animals." "