US and Australia close borders and everyone outside China starts tracking contacts…
The official deaths tally has risen to 259, but for the first time the “total recovered” at 287 now exceeds the total deaths. Evidently it’s quicker to die than to recover.
Australia remains the “leader” of the Western nations with 12 confirmed cases. Thankfully, it and the US have finally got serious and both announced today that they would stop people from China from flying straight in. Citizens can return with a two week isolation or quarantine period, but foreigners cannot. This is very good news (as far as virus control goes). Now all the same nations will be furiously, laboriously tracking and tracing the hundreds of potential contacts. In a few weeks we’ll know how contagious it is, and how deadly. And maybe, with much money and dedication we’ll even stop it.
Though in a few weeks a host of secondary countries may develop their own epidemics and virus-free countries will need to block them too.
What’s really remarkable here is how useless, to the point of negligence, the World Health Organisation is.
BBC News: The US and Australia said they would deny entry to all foreign visitors who had recently been in China, where the virus first emerged in December.
Earlier, countries including Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Italy announced similar travel restrictions.
All of these countries are going against the World Health Organisation which appears to be using the medical handbook of 1917 — when people had to walk across borders, and no one had a phone. Follow this reasoning:
But global health officials have advised against such measures.
“Travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies,” the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
It’s like sickness and death, loss of production lines, and mass holiday cancellations don’t hurt the economy at all….?
The WHO seems to think we should allow 1,000 infectious people to cross borders just so one doctor can go the other way. Haven’t they heard of email? And how much tax did we pay for that advice?
Understandably the medicos in Hong Kong are at the end of their tether:
Hospital workers in Hong Kong have voted to go on strike from Monday unless the territory’s border with mainland China is completely closed. The Hong Kong government has refused to do so citing WHO recommendations.
How many people will the WHO kill with this advice?
It was reckless to allow borders to stay open once we knew it was transmissible without symptoms. With an Ro of 2 and a death rate of 2 – 10%, the spike in cases needing intensive care would have utterly overwhelmed the medical system in weeks as thousands of people turned up to Emergency Departments. Even if the late block doesn’t stop the virus coming eventually, it buys time to find anti-virals or vaccines and spreads the load on the medical system.
In true Big-Government-style the WHO are trying to save economies instead of people, and failing to do either.
This video next is long but candid and well informed — these two men live there, can read Chinese and know doctors on the inside (one is married to a doctor). The doctors don’t even have the right facemasks in China. They can’t speak up.
One of the standouts from this is the message of hygiene at the wet markets. Medieval is the word. This virus may or may not have arisen from the fishy fish market in Wuhan, but all its friends and cousins of the microbial world are incubating there — ready for the next one.
h/t to Steve H
LATE NOTE: I put these videos on 2 x speed, used auto subtitles, and watched “50 minutes”. (Yay, speed control!). Use the little cog symbol at the bottom right.
In China, firstly, this would have been prevented if they had free speech, and it would be minimized if they had the same culture of hygiene and handwashing and not spitting that the West has developed. I was astonished at the shots of crowded wet markets in the most upmarket city of China.
The eating of weird foods is a double edged sword. There is research showing that some Chinese traditional remedies and foods contain rare glyconutrients or other useful molecules. We eat a very sterile diet and miss out. On the other hand, if we were going to create novel diseases there a few “better” ways. It’s not too good for those endangered species either…
Been trying to do a Corona thread for three days, but every time it was half finished everything changed.
The WHO have finally declared a state of emergency, something that seemed inevitable as soon as we knew the virus could be transmitted by people without symptoms. Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea closed their borders Thursday. Hong Kong announced a temporary closure. Singapore has now closed its borders too. Mark Steyn meanwhile, marvels that healthy US citizens are being advised not to go to China, but it’s apparently fine for sick people to travel the other way. Extraordinarily a cruise ship with 6,000 passengers was “stuck” off Italy, waiting for clearance for two Chinese people who had symptoms like a flu. Fortunately they must have just had the flu. The ship was cleared. And so it is around the world with a mosaic pattern of super actions, versus business as usual.
British Airways has suspended all flights to and from China, as have many other airlines, but in a city by city way. The virus is now present in every region of China. It’s not clear why all flights to and from China have not been stopped. On ABC news Australia’s supposedly top medico didn’t explain why, just palmed off the decision as advice from the WHO. Red flags anyone? A union of pilots in the US is so concerned they are suing American Airlines in a bid to stop them flying there to protect crews. They are calling for staff to refuse work trips to high-risk locations. On #CoronaOutbreak there are photos of shelves emptying in Shanghai, people are wearing giant juice bottles on their heads, and not wearing a face mask is considered a bad thing — indeed, people are being arrested for not wearing face masks. Videos apparently show people being forcibly locked inside houses because of their suspected infections.
The first case of human to human transmission has been confirmed in the US and 168 people are now on a watchlist. Passengers on one flight in Australia have just been advised they were travelling on Monday night with a man who has been diagnosed. 200 people are being contacted. The plane flew another 13 legs or so before it got a proper clean and that contact list might, yeah, well… The sick man was part of a group of eight who toured the risky part of China, four of the eight have symptoms and all eight are in isolation.
The live map and official Corona Virus tally (for whatever that means) is 213 deaths and 9,776 confirmed infections, plus or minus 2,000 or 80,000 (Uni HK below). But 100 or so cases are now confirmed outside China, so we are on the cusp of a global epidemic.
Ominously, the “total officially recovered”, is just 187 — by this tally, more have died than survived. But this is probably just a measure of those who got the most severe form of the disease and also managed to survive an overcrowded and underfunded Chinese ICU. Added to this, Wuhan is an industrial town with heavy air pollution — known as “the Chicago of China” or China’s Smog City. That can’t be too good for local lungs. The guesstimate on the BBC is that about a quarter of people get “the bad form”.
It’s likely that many other people have already caught this in China, but didn’t get deadly sick, and didn’t go to hospital and are not counted here at all. The virus may even cause subclinical, or low grade barely detectable disease in some, though in this world of unknowns, there are undoubtedly other deaths that may not be included in the tally too — misdiagnosed or undiagnosed and just rushed to the crematorium.
WHO says the death rates are 2% though no one really knows. A recent paper in Lancet estimates 11%. The fact is, there are no facts we can rely on. (h.t Mishtalk) But if that Lancet paper is closer to the mark, there is a gargantuan trainwreck coming. Quick, someone explain exponential curves to the people in power. We need to act like lightning to head this off.
Some estimate put the number of people infected at tens of thousands higher (see estimates below). It did seem odd that a city of 11 million suddenly needed new “2-minute-hospitals” to cope with a few thousand patients. Someone knew something. Indeed, there are many fishy things about this, including those fish markets which may or may not be the source. There is that odd coincidence of China’s first high level biosafety laboratory being also in Wuhan and working with Corona viruses as well as Ebola and SARS. There were warnings.
Below is the official trajectory. What we really want to see on this graph below is any kind of leveling off. Instead, we see 1000 become 10,000 in a week. And the more people infected, the more opportunity for mutations. And if there are wildlife vectors, it will run amok and stick around.
Communist governments aside, the Chinese people are smart enough and motivated to slow things themselves. Social media and the rapid spread of fear is driving people to isolate themselves, so the epidemic may plateau sooner and lower than the worst projections. There is action. Some towns and even apartment blocks are getting organised and cutting themselves off. As long as people can stay inside and avoid public gatherings long enough, it will help.
The rate of spread
Estimates of the Ro or Reproductive number are in the 2 – 3 range (or lately 1.4 – 2.5) but changing fast. An Ro of 2 means one person is likely to infect 2 others, which makes it on par with influenza in terms of spreadability (and thus “stoppability” once it has gained a foothold).
Obviously Ro matters: Bigger numbers mean faster, higher peaks. Without intervention, the number starts to flatten when enough people are immune through having had it and recovered. Alternately, careful tracing of contacts with vaccination can slow the spread sooner. I’m guessing that even a vaccine with a short lived efficacy would slow transmission and be useful in an emergency situation.
Ro, Reproductive curves of infectious diseases. ResearchGate
Obviously an Ro of 1 or less means a disease will shrink away to nothing. So if quarantine measures are strong enough, and the effective Ro can be reduced, infections will plateau and shrink. But it will take aggressive and quick action to achieve that. Exponential curves are so unforgiving.
…experts from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) estimated that the number of cases in Wuhan as of Jan 25 was dramatically higher than the country’s official totals and may be as high as 44,000. They also estimated that the city’s cases will double over the next 6 days.
They said that about 25,000 people in Wuhan are likely symptomatic and the others are still in the incubation period.
Note that other estimates are very different (eg Uni of Lancashire = 11,000)
Estimates of epidemic spread, CoronaVirus, Jan 25th, 2020 |Mishtalk
They estimate the peak in China will not occur until April or May. That is a lot of doublings away…
Based on outbreak data and train, air, and road travel from Wuhan—which is central China’s transportation hub—they said Chongqing could be the next most affected city, because of its strong transport ties to Wuhan. They said outbreaks in Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen could peak in April or May and gradually slow in June and July.
With 8 to 12 doublings til the peak in China, if there are 80,000 infections now, in six weeks there could be 5 million. In 8 weeks 20 million, and in 12 weeks 320 million. If there are only 10,000 now, it may mean the same thing with a three-week delay. But that three weeks could make a huge difference to the final tally if the rate of doubling can be slowed aggressively now. Every day counts.
These estimates are jelly in every sense. The official graph from the John Hopkins live map above suggests the doubling time is much faster than 6 days.
What do you do in a lockdown?
Let’s not forget that in Wuham there are millions of healthy people (and we hope as many as possible stay that way).
How to survive staying indoors during #coronavirus lockdown according to these very important videos making their rounds on Chinese social media.
Chinese researchers have found three existing drugs with fairly good inhibitory effects on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) at the cellular level, a local newspaper has reported.
The three drugs are Remdesivir, Chloroquine and Ritonavir. They are now under relevant procedures to gain approval for clinical use, said Hubei Daily on Wednesday.
It’s a moment in history. Congratulations to Nigel Farage.
Populism is becoming very popular
The Chairperson bureaucrat sums the petty pointlessness of the EU so well. As the Brits triumphantly and disobediently wave their flags, she tries to order them into submission: “Could we please remove the flags. ” “If you disobey the rules you get cut off” — she threatens to cut off the nation that’s celebrating that it has cut itself off.
Freed from the self-serving undemocratic conglomerate meddlers. Brilliant, and best wishes to the UK.
With populist members lukewarm,
The E.U. fast needs some reform,
As the Brexiteers show,
How to pack up and go,
To the exits, could be the new norm.
— Ruairi
If only they had overwhelming evidence they could post YouTubes that were popular
As Steve Milloy says“Not only are we winning the debate… we are forcing our opponents to show who the actual would-be-dictators are. “
Here’s Dem Kathy Castor writing to the YouTube CEO to ask him to stop YouTube suggesting skeptical videos as “up next” or earning advertising money.
To Sundar Pichai,
CEO, Google, CA
[snip intro]
As we all work together to solve this crisis [climate change], we must also eliminate barriers to action, including those as pervasive and harmful as climate denial and climate misinformation.
That’s why I urge you to ensure that Youtube is not incentivising video’s by removing them immediately from the platform’s recommended algorithm;
Add ‘climate misinformation’ to the platforms list of borderline content;
Stop monetizing videos that promote harmful misinformation and falsehoods about the causes and effects of the climate crisis;
Take steps to correct the record for millions of users who have been exposed to climate misinformation on YouTube.
Please respond by Friday February 7, to describe any efforts you plan to take in order to address these important issues.
YouTube has been “actively promoting” videos containing misinformation about climate change, a report released Thursday by campaign group Avaaz claims, despite recent policy changes by the platform intended to drive users away from harmful content and conspiracy theories.
Avaaz examined 5,537 videos retrieved by the search terms “climate change,” global warming” and “climate manipulation,” and then the videos most likely to be suggested next by YouTube’s “up next” sidebar. For each of those search terms respectively, 8%, 16% and 21% of the top 100 related videos included by YouTube in the “up-next” feature contained information that goes against the scientific consensus on climate change – such as denying climate change is taking place, or claiming that human activity is not a cause of climate change. Avaaz claims this promotion process means YouTube is helping to spread climate denialism.
Stephan Lewandowsky, chair of the cognitive psychology department at the University of Bristol, who studies climate misinformation… (and practises it himself) isn’t sure if YouTube has the political will to censor “for the climate” and mentions how it might be harder to block deniers while there are still politicians who aren’t reciting the permitted lines.
“With climate denial, even though it is a scientifically totally absurd position, there are plenty of politicians in the U.S. and Australia, for example, who are immersed in this stuff.”
Dang voters. Should we ban them too?
Youtube are being squeezed between a rock and a wall
Bullies demanding censorship can get what they want, either by leaning on Youtube, or on its advertisers. Campaigns to scare off advertisers cost the company millions when Youtube clients pulled out of posting “ads near extremist content” in 2017. But if YouTube censors even more of the most popular controversial material, they risk losing everything. Bored audiences will head for competitors.
None of this would be possible if children were taught about free speech at school.
Who knew that the whole point of financial winds is to kill off dumb investments in the first place? Not the socialist ABC.
If the ABC weren’t an advertising agency for Big Gov dependents, the headline could have read:
Artificial solar bubble busts in Australia: green investors burnt
What big government giveth…
There goes another solar powered Boom and Bust. | Greenenergy markets / Wattclarity
Solar no longer ‘a licence to print money’
Investment has ” has fallen off a cliff.” And there is more of that coming: “Queensland and South Australia have been at the forefront of depressed solar prices, but Mr [Tristan] Edis argues News South Wales and Victoria will not be far behind.
By business reporter Stephen Letts, (Are they kidding? Business?)
Independent wholesale energy market consultant Allan O’Neil has waded through the 660 pages of the ‘Generator Statistical Digest (GSD) 2019’ and found one of the key themes was the struggle new solar farms were having “with the messy reality of the electricity market”.
Back then, NEM wholesale prices were averaging close to $100/MWh (megawatt/hour)…
And which poor suckers paid those bonanza prices …. oh wait….the same ones who pay for the ABC? Stephen Letts doesn’t ask. It’s all about corporate capitalistic projects…
…and the renewable generators’ other key source source of income, Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) were roughly similar — around $80-90 MWh per certificate — an indication of the paucity of renewable energy in the system at the time.
The profits looked so good, but they were all fake, from subsidies and forced payments. Solar panel investors were investing in big government whims, not in energy generation.
Almost all the research and info in this came from Allan O’Neill at WattClarity. In a nutshell, solar isn’t profitable even in Queesland because the lines are long, transmission loses are large, the electricity comes when customers don’t need it, and the government keeps insisting the solar farms pay for “grid stability” (FCAS) because the grid needs it, and solar doesn’t supply it.
As I said last year: Random Energy is the gift you don’t need
Random gigawatts has the illusion of looking useful, but it’s the gift of a spare holiday house you don’t know if you can use til the day before. It’s the spare fridge in the garage that overheats in hot weather, the extra turkey for thanksgiving that might not arrive til the day after. The bills, the storage, the clutter, the chaos.
POST-NOTE: It’s what they don’t tell you.
As usual, the lies by omission change the whole story. Stephen Letts writes about the cost of solar power:
Mr O’Neil said falling construction costs also helped spur the investment boom, with some projects then reportedly being economic at all-up revenues in the $60-80/MWh range.
… but he doesn’t mention that brown coal was not just economic, but profitable at $30/MWh.
The $80-90 MWh price for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) had nothing to do with a paucity of renewable energy in the system. The price reflected the penalty for a power retailer who failed to buy sufficient certificates which was a non-tax deductible fine of $65 per MWh (indexed for inflation). The non-tax deductible provision meant that the cost to the retailer was around $87. Of course renewables generators set their price close to that. In order to temporarily bring retail prices down the regulator has authorised retailers to defer purchase of certificates for three years, at which time they had to procure them. Demand for certificates dropped and the non cost effective renewables industry, needing the subsidies represented by the certificates offered low cost deals to retailers. When the three year hiatus ends and retailers have to purchase outstanding certificates as well as the certificates for that year, prices will return to previous levels. The large and small scale certificate subsidies are nothing more or less than a price on carbon (dioxide) by stealth.
Hardly anyone is talking about these numbers yet they show just how far beyond our control the pyroconvective firestorms are and why we need to be so much smarter at preventing them. They also show how irrelevant temperatures onsite are, compared to fuel load and wind speed.
Controllable fires are 3MW per meter, but we now have loads of 70MW/m
Not only are these fires obscenely, catastrophically intense, it doesn’t matter how much fire fighting equipment we buy, how many dams we empty, they are a man-made disaster, and we’ve known for years how to prevent them. (Some would say, thousands of years). The message in here is that cool controllable burns are tiny, less damaging, and far less intense. The pyroconvective monsters are totally different creatures.
Andrew Bolt interviewed fire expert David Packham in November:
Top fire expert David Packham says forget global warming. It’s the reckless failure to burn-off fuel loads that have turned parts of Australia into death traps. Near Melbourne “we’re looking down the barrel in these areas at 1000 deaths”.
His key point is that if we increase the fuel by ten, the fire intensity is 100 times greater. Today we are dealing with fire intensities with figures like 70MW/m. The maximum we can extinguish — with helicopters, bulldozers, tankers, is just 3MW/m.
“We now have fuel loads ten times greater than … what the indigenous people had.”
“Fuel load …is not behind a lot of it, it’s behind all of it.”
“The amount of fuel determines the amount of energy that is released”.
“The amount of fuel determines how fast the fire moves”
“The most dangerous place in the world is just north of the Yarra and the north facing slopes fo the Dandenongs.”
” The big threats are not just life, but the environmental damage, the threats to the water supply, and our electricity network.”
h/t to Skeptical Sam. Thanks to Roger Underwood for assistance.
The fireline intensity of the Australian 2020 fires is “off the chart”
The fireline intensity tells us how much damage a fire will do, how long it takes life to recover, or even whether it will recover. It also helps us figure out what we should try to do to minimize the damage. Bear in mind Packham was speaking of potential fire damage long before the huge New Year’s Eve fires.
The freakish conditions spawned unique effects: a car was forced 90m along a road with its handbrake on, burning mattresses were seen hurtling through the air, … road surfaces bubbled and caught fire and sand liquefied to glass. CSIRO experts later reported that, from evidence of melted metal, the heat of the fires after the change rose to 2000 °C, exceeding that recorded during the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. In fact, the Ash Wednesday fires were measured at around 60,000 kilowatts of heat energy per metre, leading to similarities with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. — Wikipedia (Baxter 1984)
The intensity of fire is hard to measure, especially live. We can get some approximation “after the fact” by looking at the damage. Be aware, there are many variations of both units and estimates, but the same message keeps coming. The intensity of the wildfires that “make their own weather” — the true firestorms are a magnitude far beyond what we can control.
Packham talks about the Byram Equation (1959) of Fireline Intensity. Defined “as the rate of heat output per length of fireline (I), expressed as kilowatts per metre of fire edge, as shown in Equation 1.”.
Byram Equation 1959. Fireline intensity.
He argues there is one more factor — which is the dryness of the fuel (moisture content). But notice what else is missing — temperature. It’s not even worthy of being a recognised variable. The R, or forward rate of spread would be a result of the wind speeds and slope, with some effect from temperature.
Note the scale: the experts says hazard reduction burns should be kept below 0.3MW/m. A low intensity fire is defined as less than 0.5MWh/m. So everything above that is “high intensity”. Australian trees need “high intensity fires” to germinate seeds, but these are only 0.5MW/m and above, not 70MW/m firestorms. So half of the chart below describes low intensity cool fires at a hazard reduction level. With intensities above 1MW the 70MW firestorms would barely register across the top corner in this logarithmic graph.
The rate of spread is determined partly by the amount of fuel, so high fuel levels rapidly turn into intense uncontrollable fires even at lower wind conditions (or lower rates of spread). There are four types of numbers on the graph below. The fuel load below is the x-axis. The side axis is the rate of spread. The intensity is the diagonal line result in the graph. The numbers on the lines like “6.00m” are the flame lengths. So in this case six metre long flames are generated in a 14MW/m fire.
Bushfire Behaviour Characteristic Chart
Next — a similar graph in an alternate form . Byram’s fireline intensity is the energy release rate per unit length of fire line – so kW/m. The graph above uses calories per cm2. And below (grimace!) in the form of BTU/ft2.
In Figure 1 the 2000 BTU per foot squared is equivalent to a 7MW fire, 70 MW/m is “off the charts”.
Fires are also mosaics, with a patchwork of different intensities side-by-side.
As Pyne et al. (1996) demonstrated in their Figure 2.18 (reproduced in Figure 1 below), fires of equal intensity may, in fact, be produced in quite different types of fuel and with different forward rates of spread. Average fire intensity around the perimeter of a fire also varies by a factor of up to 10 (Catchpole et al. 1992)
It would be nice if we could just use the height of the flames to estimate the intensity, but it’s only so useful. In large fires the flames lean forward diagonally with the wind, so the length is a lot longer than the height. But even if we could measure the length accurately, it maxes out long before we get to pyroconvective fire levels. As Phil Cheney explains, it’s only useful in fires of 10MW/m or less:
After 10 000 KW/m (a crown fire in dry forests) there is little difference in the height of the flames or the look of the defoliated forest. The main effect thereafter is in the influence on the atmosphere but this is also strongly affected by the temperature and moisture structure in the atmosphere.
Fire flame length and intensity, chart.
It’s useful though to know just how much of our understanding and research on fire is based on studying small, low intensity fires.
Intense fires cause much more damage
Now down to the business end of the charts. At what level do fires become truly awful catastrophes:
“McArthur (1962) noted that fire damage was closely related to fire intensity. Thus a reduction in the destructiveness of wildfires can generally be achieved by broadscale prescribed burning—where the primary objective is to reduce the accumulation of fuel over a wide area. Such broadscale reduction in fuel should result in significantly decreased rates of spread and intensities of a wildfire, which should in turn assist suppression forces in controlling the fire (McArthur 1962).
….
Not surprisingly, it’s difficult to measure “live” fire intensity:
Despite fire intensity being considered a good indicator of fire behaviour in general, fire intensity is difficult to measure accurately (Burrows 1995), especially over short periods of time. Often it is only estimated post-fire.
Fires are patchy things producing a mosaic pattern that encourages diversity of species (though, who knows, possibly a broadscale firestorm reaches 100% consumption of fuel that makes it less patchy; this report does not say that.)
Thus, fire creates environmental diversity at several scales. At the broad scale (i.e. across thousands of hectares) there is a mosaic of areas burned one, two, three, up to 50 or so years previously. At the local scale (i.e. across single hectares) spatial variation in fire intensities produces a patchiness in the resultant effects.
It may take up to 40 years for the mammals to recover if they lose shelter, food and breeding sites — even animals that survive the fire are likely to die in the aftermath:
Suckling and Macfarlane (1984) commented that the rate of survival (during a fire) of mammals is a function of fire intensity. However, longer-term recovery also depends on the recovery of habitat (i.e. shelter, food, breeding sites), in both composition and structure, which may be quite rapid or may take 20 to 40 years for complete recovery (ibid.). Suckling and Macfarlane (1984) also found that predation and starvation caused a high rate of mortality in fauna after high intensity fires.
Table 2: A low intensity fire is Class 1. High Intensity with seed regeneration is Class 2. A full crown fire is Class 4 with intensities of 70MW/m.
A low intensity fire is Class 1. High Intensity with seed regeneration is Class 2. A full crown fire is Class 4 with intensities of 70MW/m.
Seeds only need fires greater than 0.5MW to be activated. A high intensity fire is only a “class 2” level fire. More intense fires will change the structure of the forest — reducing canopy cover and increasing the scrubby understorey:
In respect to the flora, fire intensity can have a marked effect on the extent of post-fire recovery and on the relative abundance of plant species regenerating from seeds or vegetatively (Christensen et al. 1981 ; Lutze & Terrell 1998). Low-intensity fires (less than 500 kW m-1) will result in a low overall death rate of trees because the amount of bark removed from and damage to the tree boles and of crown scorch are minimal. On the other hand, greater damage occurs to the boles and crowns of trees and more bark is consumed in high-intensity fires (greater than 500 kW m-1) and higher plant mortality is likely. High intensity fires are also more likely to affect the canopy cover of the overstorey, which may enable the better establishment of understorey species—Chesterfield (1984) noted that bracken increased in dominance under a eucalypt overstorey after a number of ‘hot fires’ decreased the canopy cover.
Eucalypts are remarkably well adapted to low to moderate intensity fires:
McArthur (1962) noted that the genus Eucalyptus is remarkably resistant (in terms of overall survival of individual trees) to fires of low to moderate intensity. He also noted, however, that their resistance to fire depends on the intensity of the fire and the seasonal dryness as indicated by the Keetch-Byram Drought Index. Many adaptations in the genus also make them resistant to damage from high-intensity crown fires, as only a few species are likely to be killed outright in such fires.
Recovery from fires depends on the season they occur — dry seasons make it harder for seeds and tubers to recover:
Abbott and Christensen (1994) noted that fire intensity depends largely on the time of the year (i.e. the dryness of the litter and the stage in the life cycle), prevailing weather conditions and the period since the last fire (i.e. the amount of fuel available). The recovery of vegetation also depends on the weather conditions following the fire (Chesterfield 1984) and the legacy left in the soil in the form of seeds, bulbs, corms, tubers and lignotubers (Abbott & Christensen 1994). The effects of a fire will also depend on the season, the species involved, the residence time of the fire, fire frequency and the dryness of the vegetation and soil. Therefore, indicators of fire severity may indeed be a more effective measure of the ecological effect of the fire than fire intensity indicators alone.
Direct control and suppression of fires only works at 2- 3MW of fire intensity, above that only “indirect methods” are left.
Fire intensity directly influences the cost of suppression, as the method of suppression depends on fire behaviour or, more generally, fire intensity. For low-intensity fires (i.e. less than 2000–3000 kW m-1), direct attack methods may be used. For more intense fires, however, indirect attack methods are generally required, especially on the fire front.
Fire intensity is the most important factor in the survival of houses. As well as ember attack, firestorms create winds that damage homes:
Wilson (1984) stated that fire intensity is the most important determinant in whether a house survives a nearby wildfire, as compared to its construction material, the presence of flammable objects near the house and the presence of plants less than 5 m tall within 40 m of the house. Wilson and Ferguson (1984) studied houses that were affected (either destroyed or partially burned) in the fire at Mount Macedon on 16 February 1983. Fuel loads (including elevated and surface fine fuels, but not including the crown fuels) in the adjoining forest were up to 21 t ha-1, forward rates of spread in the town were of the order of 3–4 km h1 and the houses were exposed to fire intensities ranging between 500 and 60 000 kW m-1. Of the total of 450 houses surveyed (of which 234 were destroyed), about 10% were exposed to crown fire in the adjacent forest canopy (crowning was infrequent once the fire entered the township) and 50% were exposed to surface fire intense enough to fully scorch surrounding trees. Almost 40% of houses were exposed to a less intense surface fire, but one that was nevertheless accompanied by strong winds and airborne embers. Wilson and Ferguson (1984) noted that houses exposed to high-intensity fires are subjected to severe thermal stresses, and sometimes the strong winds associated with high intensity fires can cause structural damage.
There is more detail on the effects on the forest from this chart from Burrows 1984. The message is the same, minor permanent damage to trees starts with 1 – 2MW/m fires, and by 5MW/m the fully grown pine trees are destroyed, and even the rootstock of gums may be damaged to the point where it will not resprout and recover. Trees that are hundreds of years old can be wiped out.
Burrows, 1984. | Click to enlarge.
Prescribed burning should be done with fire intensities of only 0.3MW.
When fuel is allowed to accumulate there would be very few days each year when it would be safe to burn. A lack of hazard reduction makes it harder to do hazard reduction.
McArthur (1962) described, for prescribed fires, characteristic fire behaviours based on a series of fire intensity ranges. He implied that, to ensure that no unacceptable damage occurred in commercial (native) forests, all prescribed burning should be carried out with fire intensities less than 340 kW m-1 (or 100 BTU ft -1s-1). Gill et al. (1987) described the optimum prescribed burning days as those when fire intensities were between 60 and 250 kW m-1. Luke and McArthur (1978) suggested that the upper limit for prescribed fire (for the purpose of fuel reduction) is 4000 kW m-1. However both Cheney (1981) and Christensen et al. (1981) suggest that it would be extremely optimistic to expect a result at this intensity with little or no damage
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The world needs an open dialogue about climate change to heal the gap between sceptics and believers since time is running out to cut the emissions that drive global warming, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
This may seem important after three decades of skeptics being called deniers, and being shut out of every debate, decision and research grant. But it has all the hallmarks of relevance-deprivation-syndrome. The US people elected a skeptic, and he and Saint Greta have stolen her limelight:
The first two days of the annual Davos gathering were dominated by the back-and-forth between the 73-year-old former businessman Trump and 17-year-old campaigner Greta Thunberg, with corporate leaders caught in the middle, concerned that as well as words, there was a need for concrete decisions.
Statements like this provide cover for the reality which is rampant social ostracism, exclusion, coercion and bullying. But it’s soothing theatre for the Davos crowd who would love to be seen to be diplomatic. They are clapping their own generous image.
She drew applause from the Davos audience when she said opposing sides in polarised debates such as that on climate change had to learn how to talk with each other again.
They won’t be going home and inviting skeptics to dinner.
If Merkel was serious she would be seeking out and holding talks with skeptics — with groups like EIKE in Germany (or any of the many names they could provide from industry and science). We’ll believe she means it when Merkel speaks out against the namecalling and treats any skeptic with respect — other than those who are also leaders of the free world.
Holy Smoke Batman! An astonishing 12,000 fires have started in New South Wales since August. The police have investigated 1700 so far. Of those, fully 42% are described as “deliberately lit” which includes both intentional and accidental and at the moment police refuse to put a number on how many are truly arson, as opposed to people deliberately lighting a campfire which ran amok. Only 156 fires of the total investigated, or 9%, were caused naturally (presumably that means by lightning).
Another 745 fires of the 1700 are not yet determined. There seems plenty of scope to increase the number of man-made fires but I would assume the extent of lightning strikes are already known.
Forty specialist police officers will investigate to zero in on and profile would-be arsonists. “Strike Force Tronto is about profiling. It’s about zeroing in on serial arsonist behaviours that occurs during the bushfire period,” he said.
“That sets the framework for the next fire season so that we do zero in on and target those individuals who we believe may be involved in arsonist behaviour. “This summer we have interacted with 15 individuals that will face court or legal action relative to behaviour around the bushfire period,” he said.
New figures provided by police on Friday showed that legal action has been taken against 55 people for fires that were allegedly deliberately lit since August 1.
Arson and man-made fires threaten the ABC’s reputation and agenda
Long before the police investigated, the ABC announced the “truth” already, using their taxpayer funded crystal balls. Arson obviously doesn’t fit the agenda of the climate change religion. Not only does it show how pointless solar panels and windmills are, but it also shows how the ABC have been misleading the nation to fill their own wallets, or spread their personal religion. The fire issue means millions of Australians may wake up to find out just how politicized their ABC “news” is.
Helpfully, the ABC gives us clues that it is outrageously fibbing. If they say something is “true”, we know it isn’t.
The truth about Australia’s fires — arsonists aren’t responsible for many this season
Only about 1 per cent of the land burnt in NSW this bushfire season can be officially attributed to arson, and it is even less in Victoria, the ABC can reveal.
Given that most fires couldn’t be attributed to anything at that stage, the ABC forgot to mention the “unknown” category, and sliced the data so they could list the smallest possible percentage. In this case, “1%” of the area burnt.
While it is true firebugs remain a legitimate and serious threat, we crunched the numbers provided by police and fire authorities around the country.
The results might surprise you.
Surprised? No. But the self-serving gall of ABC “public servants” never fails to amaze.
Apparently arsonists only light grass fires.
NSW has been the epicentre of Australia’s bushfire crisis, but the facts show arson has little to do with it.
This week, a NSW Police media release revealed 24 people had been charged over deliberately-lit bushfires this season.
However, the majority of suspected arson relates to small grass fires and rubbish bins set alight, which have inflicted negligible damage and burnt a tiny area compared with fires sparked by lightning.
As usual, the ABC finds people with some official title who agree with their message and interviews them. They either don’t ask all the other experts, or if they do, they “forget” to mention it.
If the ABC and other Reality TV Shows have increased the rate of arson with their breathless 24/7 apocalyptic coverage, they don’t mention that either.
In the largest city in a country with 300 years of coal left, yesterday the government asked a few million people to pull down the blinds on a midsummers day, to turn off the pool pumps, and not run the dishwasher from 4 – 8pm if they could avoid it. It was 42 degrees C.
Remember the good old days when the nation could afford to run the air con? Here in metropolis Australia, some days it’s better to bunker down in a few dark rooms with the air con at survival mode.
Welcome to Renewable World. What’s wrong with all those solar panels? Between dust storms and bushfires and the hail in Canberra, possibly they are covered in dust or soot, or perhaps, holes.
Imagine how much productive brain power is being consumed. The whole nation (almost) is becoming involved in management of the hypercomplex random generation network. As well as all those poles and wires and control rooms, we now need radio and twitter to send messages to the serfs to open and close windows, change their work schedules, or run out and click the pool pump off.
The government is advising people reduce electricity demand for a few hours this afternoon, by:
· closing doors, windows and blinds to keep the heat out;
· switching off non-essential appliances such as pool pumps;
· cooling a minimum number of rooms; and setting air conditioners to 26 degrees.
“The peak period for power use in NSW is expected to be between 4pm and 8pm, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and we are asking consumers to reduce their demand during this period where it is possible and safe to do so.”
While the grid appeared to survive another day, things could easily get worse. The peak heat of summer may (or may not) be over, but here in Oz, summer holidays are winding up, and school and industry will return to full demand in the next two weeks, yet NSW is already struggling. If there is a hot humid day in February, things may not work out so well.
The power market operator has been forced to call on emergency reserves for the third time this summer to prevent potential blackouts in sweltering NSW as the electricity grid strained under the the impact of wild weather, generator outages and high demand.
Who cares about being accurate. The point of being a journalist is to tell people what to do. But after twenty years of propaganda the punters are still not getting the message, so Faye Flam (her real name) thinks it’s time to stop using “climate change” and switch back to “global warming”. Apparently a five year old Yale Study suggests that it’s more scary, and Flam has discovered it just in time to wring a bit more propaganda value out of the Australian fires. “Lucky”. eh?
She seems to think that a George W Bush adviser tricked the world into using “Climate Change” because it was less scary.
Seems “Climate change” is vague and doesn’t convey enough urgency.
As scientific terms go, “climate change” is lame. It sounds like something created by committee. And it’s hard to understand as a crisis when we also hear scientists talking about ice ages and other natural changes to the climate happening throughout earth’s history. “Global warming” is something people have worried about for years, though. It’s essentially another term for the same thing, but conveys a planet-wide danger.
She was inspired by Australian Bushfires, because “Warming” means “Hot” and “Hot” means “Fires”.
There’s good evidence that global warming is exacerbating the wildfires raging in southern Australia, but when we call it “climate change,” non-scientists may well wonder what the connection is and how it could have been averted. Call it “global warming,” though, and it’s intuitively easy to understand that if the world is getting warmer on average, then of course some hot places will get even hotter, and eventually some really hot places, such as southern Australia, will go up in flames.
Apparently Southern Australia has just spontaneously combusted. Either that, or science has.
The caption of the photo of kangaroos jumping in the orange haze says: “When the earth gets hotter, some places catch fire.” Which explains why the Sahara Desert is nine million square kilometers of blazing sand.
It’s always an evil right wing conspiracy, even when left wing journalists run the media:
How, then, did the term “climate change” come to dominate its more descriptive predecessor? Some news organizations have pointed to memo, intended to be secret, from George W. Bush adviser Frank Luntz. In it, Luntz proposed avoiding the term “global warming” because it might scare people.
Ask yourself: were left wing journalists really such obedient patsies for a sole Republican memo or is this theory just so much junk?
Then figure out how a term too vague to be used in the media is “useful” for scientists:
But the term “climate change” also caught on among scientists, who have argued that it’s more encompassing, including all the side effects of the carbon dioxide buildup — not only warming, but also changes in rainfall patterns, sea level rise, more dangerous storms, floods and droughts. Seen that way, “climate change” should be the scarier term, but ironically, the Yale/George Mason survey found non-scientists had the opposite reaction — global warming carried a much stronger suggestion of potential catastrophe.
“Climate change” is far too useful for the scaremongers to give up, and next week when the blizzards strike, or the floods come, Global Warming will be quietly packed away again.
Go on — wear the T-Shirt — Global Warming causes Cold Snaps. See what I mean?
Yesterday hail the size of golf balls fell on Canberra:
Windows, cars, gardens smashed. Already there have between 15,000 insurance claims made and it’s been declared a catastrophe. (Tough few weeks for insurers in Australia).
Canberra aims to be 100% renewables (but they aren’t cutting the line to the coal power). Will we ever find out how much the bill for the solar panel damage was?
One hundred and thirty three years ago:
h/t John in Oz.
… (Click to enlarge)
Queanbeyan is Canberra’s twin city, 15 minutes from Parliament House but in the next state. Long before Canberra was even founded, there were shocking hail storms. At a glance, terrible hail storms appear more common in summer.
January 7, 1871: Queanbeyan Hail of “large jagged shapes”, “bigger than pigeon’s eggs” shattered “hundreds of glass windows”, “cut ripe paddocks of wheat to pieces”, was “ruinous on fruit” crops, vine and trees. Many buildings were damaged. Hail lay in “deep drifts on the ground”.
Dec 29th, 1877: Extraordinary Hailstorm in Queanbeyan — large as “oranges” and “cricket balls”, cut through corrugated tin, killed “40 lambs”, knocked down foals, felled a horse. Left a trail of “terrible” destruction.
Dec 2nd, 1919: Destructive hailstorm: “on roofs with the noise of musketry, while others came with such force upon the ground as to bury themselves deep in loose soil, or to rebound from harder lodgements, especially the roads and streets, like tennis balls, two or three feet high…”
Feb 16th, 1956: Hailstorm Canberra’s Longest: …lasted 29 minutes. Some of the largest hail ever seen… “4.8 inches” fell on Yarralumla in 12 minutes. The hail caused “up to 100% losses in stone fruit”… “the most disastrous storm for many years”. 182 points of rain fell on the suburb of Griffith.
Big Government strangles our ecosystems just like it strangles scientific research. Australia has had 57 bushfire inquiries since 1939. We knew what was coming and we knew how to stop it, and we’ve known for eighty years (and indigenous people for thousands). Instead we paid a garrison of gravy trainers to not-read-those-reports and to create the exact conditions we knew would turn into a pyroconvective catastrophe. State Premiers missed a major threat to their people, their industry, our environment. On top of the death and destruction toll, just one industry, tourism, is looking at a $4.5b loss. Heads must roll. If they were misled, then name the names.
Our institutions failed us: The CSIRO didn’t save us, the ABC didn’t. What’s the point of them? Academics and CRC’s could’ve warned the nation, but instead most experts and the “reporters” said renewable energy would prevent these fires, even though climate change has made no difference to rainfall or droughts, which are driven by ocean currents, and solar cycles, not carbon dioxide. Let’s promote those who got it right, and turn off the tap to those that didn’t. Who pays damages? Who gets sacked?
Just do it: less fuel, less rules, more roads, more dams.Read Viv Forbes.
Cartoon thanks to Steve Hunter and the Saltbushclub
Government by Enquiry by Viv Forbes
Politicians hide behind enquiries – their magic answer to all problems, especially bushfires.
Announcing enquiries give the impression of decisive action, they generate fees for armies of barristers, lawyers and bureaucrats, and provide momentary excitement for the media.
The proposed 2020 Australian Bushfires corrobboree will provide a grandstand for the Climate Rebellion Mob who will get starring roles on ABC/Fairfax. Big business will probably propose a carbon tax to fight bushfires while foresters and land owners will hardly be heard.
When the final report is ultimately delivered, the media will be off trumpeting some new climate “emergency” to scare the public. The expensive new report will be quietly filed with all the others.
We’ve had at least 57 bushfire enquiries since 1939 – about one every two years. Anyone who bothers to read them will soon deduce what should be done. Nothing much has changed except there are more people living in fire prone zones with no protection, and more forest and private land was locked up with heavy fuel loads.
The current bushfire tragedy has occurred after 30 years of unprecedented government control of environmental policy at all levels of government. Many of these destructive policies have been imported under so called “international agreements”. As a result, ordinary Australians have been dragged into court for constructing firebreaks or removing dangerous trees on their own land. Governments and green advisers have assumed total stewardship of the environment and they own the results – massive destruction of lives, homes, property, animals and vegetation – over five million hectares and 2,000 homes burnt.
Here is a five point plan which should come from Bushfire Enquiry number 58.
Firstly, reduce the fuel load especially in national parks and forests by cool season burning, grazing, timber harvesting, slashing/mulching and collecting dead fire-wood. Appoint trained and experienced foresters to maintain safe and healthy public forests. Private landowners should also be enabled and obliged to become fire safe. Green-tinged politicians and bureaucrats have prevented or hampered all of these reforms.
Secondly, create and maintain wide clear trafficable roads, tracks and firebreaks through the forests and around towns and private properties. In fire seasons, these patrolled fire-barriers will help to confine any fire to one sector and provide a prepared line from which to back burn if there is an approaching fire.
Thirdly, build more dams and weirs to provide water for fire-fighting and to provide fire havens for humans, animals and vegetation. Increase penalties for arson in times of high fire danger.
Fourthly, abolish all restrictions on responsible management of “protected” vegetation reserves on private land – especially the private land sterilised to fulfil foolish government Kyoto Protocol promises or under government-enforced vegetation protection orders. Governments have created these fire hazards by trying to wrap vast areas of vegetation in cotton wool and green tape (both of which are flammable). Government “protection” of flora and fauna has proved to be the fiery kiss of death.
Fifthly, decentralise fuel and forest management out of the cities and into the regions.
City based politicians and bureaucrats have done enormous harm by locking up land and opposing fuel load reduction.
Decisions on vegetation risk management should be handed to property owners, park rangers, forest managers and rural fire wardens.
There is no useful role for the Commonwealth unless asked by States or regions for logistic support or to help fund bushfire training and fuels management. Otherwise it is better if Canberra politicians keep out of the way – send them all for a holiday in Hawaii. Viv Forbes
To download this article with all images click: Saltbushclub PDF
Viv Forbes has been an explorer, pastoralist and weather-watcher in Queensland and NT for most of his long life. He has lit fires (accidentally and deliberately), and he and his wife have fought fires and had their camps, fences and pastures wiped out by fires. They were both members of a local bush fire brigade for over 25 years. (Judy even had formal training).
Whose fault was it and will they get away with it (like all the other times)?
Twenty seven people died, a billion animals, 2,000 homes, tourism wrecked and a plume of smoke stretched from here to South America. Unless heads roll, this cycle repeats every 10 – 20 years. Imagine if the media was demanding to know how State Premiers had allowed this catastrophe, or if the opposition was accusing the government of listening to the Ivory Tower instead of the firies? The problem is, they’re all complicit. Both sides of politics are guilty, and the media didn’t see this coming either.
We can recognise those avoiding responsibility by the way they fob off hard questions:
1. Let’s blame “climate change” (because these fires are “normal” now, get used to it. Plus luckily no one ever says — “you mean it’s China’s fault?”)
2. Let’s say “now’s not the time to play the blame game” and,
3. Coming soon: “let’s wait for the Royal Commission, or Almighty Investigation, or 28th Fire Report” — or whichever comes last. (Who wants to preempt a report even if we already know what it will say. )
But we already know three State governments have not followed the advice from most past reports. They’ve ignored the fire and forestry scientists who warned them a disaster was coming and fuel loads were too high. They’ve ignored history. Bushfires in Australia are one of the most obvious dangers to live and health and yet few state leaders have bothered to understand them.
Roger Underwood AOM spent years in bushfire management, and was General Manager of CALM in WA (Conservation and Land Management). He is often asked “who’s to blame” and he points at the State Premiers, Minister and Public Servants who listened to university fools and not the bushfire scientists who said “a disaster was imminent” and who told them to clear the fuel.
At the top of the list are the premiers and ministers responsible for land management, such as it is, and bushfire policy, and the public servants in their departments with jurisdiction over forests and national parks. State governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have palpably failed to do the most important job they were elected to do: protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens and the health of their environment. And their public servants have failed to do the job they are being paid to do: serve the public.
All Big-Government roads lead to death and destruction:
Yet despite the science, the evidence presented by bushmen, the dramatic history of this contininent’s relationship with fire, and the findings of numerous inquiries, successive governments in Qld, NSW and Victoria over the last 25 years have consistently failed to prepare potential firegrounds in the expectation of the inevitable. Not only this, they seem to have actually go out of their way to make things worse: the cut-backs to fuel reduction burning, the closure of access roads and trails in national parks, the decimation of professional forestry and fire management expertise, the turning of the blind eye to the creation of residential subdivisions incapable of being defended, the funding of “research” in the universities that is aimed at making the job of the firefighter more difficult, and the erection of a complex bureaucratic edifices that hinder sensible bushfire preparedness and make fuel-reduction burning almost impossible.
Local Councils are also responsible, but ultimately the State Government is responsible for allowing council nonsense. And State Governments are responsible for Crown land.
By destroying the forestry profession they dumped the job on volunteers:
One of the consequences of the deliberate destruction of the forestry profession and forestry district structures and crews has been that governments now have to fall back on volunteers to fight forest fires.
And, of course, we could have sold all those trees instead of having one big New Years Eve bonfire.
Underwood also describes something that sounds like a Water Bomber Cargo cult. He says it is a futile fantasy with fires this big, a profligate waste of money. During fires ten years ago, government spent $10 million dollars on using a DC10 brought over from the USA. The plane was so big it could only take off and land at Avalon airport in Melbourne. It needed a smaller lead plane to follow, and couldn’t land with the full $45,000 load of fire suppressant, so once it was off the ground it had to dump that stuff somewhere, on fields, or forests or failing that — on whales. If an academic isn’t already asking for a grant to study the effects of fire retardant on wildlife, they will be soon.
*Postscript: NC in comments points out most of the planes used are smaller, which is true, but they’re also impotent against a pyroconvective infero. Plus in a drought especially, Australia just doesn’t have handy Hoover Dams of disposable fresh water to drop on a million hectares of fire. But in true big government style — the DC10’s are so ineffective, we’re getting more of them, due to arrive on Jan 11 and Jan 18, which means, just in time for the rain.
Underwood doesn’t spare the Federal government either. They were warned too, but they choose to fund knee-jerk “suppression” and “recovery” projects rather than funding prevention and mitigation. I suspect there is a federal government role in carbon accounting which encourages wildfires against prescribed burns. But again, it’s state laws that stop people clearing native vegetation. What Royal Commission would untangle those knotted incentives?
Brian
Hardly anyone is talking about these numbers yet they show just how far beyond our control the pyroconvective firestorms are and why we need to be so much smarter at preventing them. They also show how irrelevant temperatures onsite are, compared to fuel load and wind speed.
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