Hust ah!! by 2050 USA etc be sll burnt away!!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Compared to present-day conditions, the study projects the following for 2050 in the western United States:

The area burned in the month of August could increase by 65 percent*in the Pacific Northwest, and could nearly double in the Eastern Rocky Mountains/Great Plains regions and quadruple in the Rocky Mountains Forest region.
The probability of large fires could increase by factors of 2 to 3.
The start date for the fire season could be earlier (late April instead of mid-May), and the end date could be later (mid-October instead of early October).
The study also predicts that air quality will suffer as a result of larger, longer-lasting wildfires. Smoke from wildfires is composed of organic and black carbon particles and can impede visibility and cause respiratory problems, researchers note. By 2050, they predict that smoke will increase 20 percent to 100 percent, depending on the region and the type of particle.

"It turns out that, for the western United States, the biggest driver for fires in the future is temperature, and that result appears robust across models," Loretta Mickley, a senior research fellow in atmospheric chemistry at Harvard SEAS and coauthor of the new study. "When you get a large temperature increase over time, as we are seeing, and little change in rainfall, fires will increase in size."

Study: Climate change to significantly increase wildfires by 2050
September 3, 2013 | By Greg Slabodkin
The spate of wildfires that have recently plagued the western United States could be just the beginning of natural disasters yet to come. A new study from Harvard researchers predicts that by 2050, wildfire seasons in that part of the country will be 3 weeks longer, up to twice as smoky, and will burn a wider area due to climate changes, according to an announcement.

The findings of the study, conducted by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, are based on a set of internationally recognized climate scenarios, decades of historical meteorological data, and records of past fire activity. "The main innovation of the new study is its reliance on an ensemble of climate models, rather than just one or two," states a Harvard press release.*

One of the greatest uncertainties in the science of climate change is the sensitivity of surface temperatures to rising levels of greenhouse gases. However, principal investigator Jennifer Logan, a recently retired senior research fellow at Harvard SEAS, argues that "our use of a multi-model ensemble increases confidence in our results."




http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.co...050/2013-09-03


Jhg


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