Anec-data: I’m in my 40s and live in the Vancouver area. The first time in my life that I ever experienced a smoked in summer was about 5 years ago.
Actual data: the link you posted shows a decrease in fires overall, but the size and damage of them increasing. I guess when the fires are so big and start merging your overall count goes down.
The #1 contributing factor in this case is the western pine beetle, which exploded in range when winters stopped being cold enough to kill them off, and left stands of dead forests in its wake. Climate change is a direct culprit.
>Anec-data: I’m in my 40s and live in the Vancouver area. The first time in my life that I ever experienced a smoked in summer was about 5 years ago.
And up until last week, almost no one alive in BC had lived through record-setting temperatures, most of which were set in the 1930s.
It just seems so counter productive to point to every single weather event now and say "see? climate-change". That's why people ignore the issue. They're inundated with it.
Prior to the 1930's, we didnt even have reliable means of tracking temperature. If that is the sole argument for "this is climate change" an easy rebuttal would be "this is a natural pattern".
For singular events like this, there simply isnt evidence either way... only whatever intuition your predisposition tells you makes sense.
If you had to bet, or put money like you were investing in the stock market, what would you put as your best-guess odds on these records being broken again in less than 70 years (ie, a shorter time than it took to break them)? What about 50 years? 30? Keep in mind that as this record is higher than the previous one, it should be harder to surpass if the climate isn't changing.
Personally, I bet 50-50 we'll surpass these records in the next 20 years.
Are you just looking at the total number of fires in Figure 1? Figure 2 shows that annual wildfire-burned area has been increasing in the last 40 years. Figures 3, 6 and 7 also back that up.
According to the EPA, wildfires over the past 40 years are slightly down. Can you point to different data that ties these wildfires to climate change?
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...