The extreme weather that fuelled “astonishing” blazes across Spain and Portugal last month was made 40 times more likely by climate breakdown, early analysis suggests.
The deadly wildfires, which torched 500,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of the Iberian peninsula in a matter of weeks, were also 30% more intense than scientists would have expected in a world without climate change, according to researchers from the World Weather Attribution network.
I live out in the middle of all of this – yes, a few local fires this summer – and they’re spouting toss. It’s alays warm enough to burn here. The native vegetation is built to do so even. One of th reasons for cork – the very thick bark of the cork oak – is to enable them to survive such frequent fires.
Changes in land use have compounded the rising regional risk of untamed infernos. Several hot Mediterranean countries have struggled to deal with the effects of rural abandonment and ageing populations, as young people moving to cities have left behind unmanaged farmland with overgrown vegetation that can easily burn.
That, however, is true. It’s the absence of goats.
Lying tossers.
“scientists say”
Yet again.
P.s. “early analysis suggests” is a relatively new arse-covering term for something you already know to be complete bollocks even as you’re claiming it.
Yeah. I do remember my trip to Greece many many years ago. The countryside was bare except where they were deliberately planting trees.
Indeed I remember coming back from Delphi and seeing an elderly woman (maybe even as old as I am these days!!) collecting a few sticks for fuel.
Expect to see lots more of this type of ‘weather attribution’. It’s the new angle for the climate change scam.
Tim, Greek authorities have arrested 300 people this year for arson (never mentioned because wildfires are always due to man made climate change).
Is there the same problem in Portugal?
There are arsonists everywhere, obvs. But it used to be that forest gained planning permission for housing if it – quelle horreur! – burned down. So, incentives. That was changed. Fewer fires in forests near where building land is valuable these days.
Regarding the fires sweeping across the North Yorkshire Moors these last couple of weeks, I stumbled across a rewilding project webpage that trumpeted them spreading “heather brash” on the site. Heather brash is another word for “kindling”.
Are the popular places for wine from Spain and Portugal moving? That is what should happen.
Climate change means the planet heating, so the southern parts of wine regions are too dry, right? Prices in the slightly cooler Navarra region should be catching up with Rioja as that is now more like the old climate of Rioja, right?
Has industrial fruit production moved at all in 100 years? The bits of the world that grow lemons or melons? They should have done, right? Some few acres that were at the edge are now too hot, so not worth picking the fruit.
There was an interview in June on BBC North West – as a ‘wildfire’ was blazing on one of the surrounding moors – with a Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue bloke who said that every single ‘wildfire’ they’d attended in the last 20 years was started, deliberately or accidentally, by humans.
Some unhelpful types in the US have noticed how CLIMATECHANGE! keeps causing terrible wildfires in areas that have stopped managing forests and grassy areas, you know, like clearing out highly combustible underbrush.
‘effects of rural abandonment’
Lahaina, 2023. Except it wasn’t rural. It was by the town. Pineapple field gone fallow, then overgrown with invasive grass. No one payed any attention. Grass dry, high winds, spark . . . 102 dead.
Trouble with goats is, of course, the flies. Each goat will be escorted around by a million or two. So there’s a considerable deterrent to keeping them.
@Estiban
Guilty as charged. Spent my youth watching helicopters napalm the hills above Los Angeles during the winter. That stopped in the 80s thanks to NIMBY and eco-nuttery.
Jonathan: When I were a lad in Lancashire back in the 60s the moors used to be burned every year in spring. We called it swailing, or swealing. I may have done a bit myself… It’s been illegal for a long time, so any fires that now start have lots of dead grass & underbrush to feed on. In some places it gets into the peat which then is really difficult to deal with.
I would be surprised, even shocked, if a “Weather Attribution” lobby club would not attribute anything happening to “Weather” and “Climate”.
As our Host always states: Incentives… Their meal ticket depends on it.
But pointing out, as other people have noted above, that all the raging wildfires in Europe have been, unsurprisingly, in heavily de-urbanised, even “abandoned” areas doesn’t help their Narrative.
Stating that letting large areas return “to the Natural Cycle” also means Gaia’s Little Cleanup Gnome: Fire, gets to play its role again, is, of course, right out…
This besides the point that “preliminary research” just means a quick round of Napkin-Fu, aimed at angling for Funding.
Any Journo that fails to spot that should immediately be hung, drawn and quartered, and pour encourager les autres, along with the sub-editor and editor who let the writtings through into print.
Preferably before they managed to produce any offspring.
When I were a lad in Lancashire back in the 60s the moors used to be burned every year in spring
Same used to happen on the North Yorkshire moors and this year as jgh noted elsewhere it has been a nightmare for fires.
Apparently still on Dartmoor: https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/living-and-working/farming/swaling
Mary I and Cardinal Pole discovered this too.
If they let Protestants alone, they became unkempt and combustible.
They found occasional burnings helped a lot.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the correlation between the % of UK fires initiated by arsonists and the number of listed buildings.
If only there were a RCT, even an accidental one, a metro mayor with the power to delist building the owners wanted to burn down.
No chance in centralised idiocracy UK
All climate “attribution studies” are bullshit: the methodology is pure confirmation bias and designed to achieve the desired result. Weather, however extreme, is not climate; and a climate often involves extremes and anomalies that diverge from its averages.
Imagine the climate hysteria if there were another East Coast Flood as in 1953:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953
Correct, Theo. It is a ruse to claim events are caused by climate change*, without directly saying it. Any prole reading it is expected to believe “caused by climate change.”
*”Caused by climate change” is adolescent junk science. A teleological fallacy.
Bongo,
“If only there were a RCT, even an accidental one, a metro mayor with the power to delist building the owners wanted to burn down.”
Listed buildings are a “perfect is the enemy of good” problem. You have a bunch of architecture nerds at English Heritage imposing such massive costs on buildings that they aren’t viable. So the incentives are pro-burning it down or hoping some kids do and not phoning the fire brigade.
It should be entirely a local matter. Councillors have to balance the needs/desires of the area. Is it a building people love? Is it making money for the local tourist industry? If not, do what you want with it. If it’s a valuable local asset, maybe cut the rates in an agreement to retain it in its current form.
@WB
Some listed buildings are genuine national assets, and we shouldn’t allow them to be knocked about/down because someone has crossed the palms of the local council with silver – this applies to almost all Grade 1s and most Grade2*s. The rest, I agree should be a local matter (and there are already local listings).
A friend of mine who lives in the Algarve blames it mostly on the eucalyptus which has been planted by the paper industry, rather than climate change. Eucalyptus is full of oil and make fires both easier to start and hotter, which means they tend to kill off other trees leaving land available for the eucalyptus to spread.
In some areas that’s true. But I could take you to places in the Algarve where my explanation works. Santa Caterina/Torres area for example, go off on hte back roads around there.