So how does climate change cause prescribed burns to happen?
Prescribed burns happen when there is too much foliage, particularly shrubs and bushes. You can expect more of this with more CO2 as plants take in more carbon dioxide. Warmer climate also leads to more growth, especially as global warming disproportionately affects colder areas, dates, and times of day.
Three reasons why climate change has helped make wildfires in western North America more severe and frequent in recent years:
1) Longer and hotter summers
2) More frequent and extreme droughts
3) Shorter and warmer winters kill fewer bark beetles, and those critters are turning huge swathes of western forests from healthy trees into dead standing fuel.
Prescribed burns are one tool for helping reduce the outbreak and mitigate the damages of wildfires. Climate change does not alter that, but it makes prescribed burns and other fire prevention measures more desirable than before.
Even prescribed burns have some risk....primarily due to unexpected change in wind direction/velocity.
I'm not aware of any climate change.
I am more concerned with wacko arsonists and careless campers, who are responsible for a large number of forest fires.....especially in California.
It can make them harder to (safely) carry out. Climate change can cause droughts, and it's not safe to start a fire when the woods are already fire-prone from drought. Misjudging how dry a forest, or trying to do a prescribed burn in a forest that you know is dry, is can lead to a prescribed burn getting out of control and becoming a wildfire.
The relationship between fire and CC is due to drought or near drought conditions and extreme heat. Worldwide,forest fires are on the increase, and are covering a larger area. The US western states and Australia have decidedly been victims of this. Prescribed burns are not due to CC but could become beyond control due to overly dry conditions and should not be instigated then.
Hmm there is no proof that increased CO2 causes droughts or extreme heat, it is just conjecture, the worst droughts in American history were in 1930's and 50's when CO2 was not an issue.
This issue of increased hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, are not confirmed by historical records.
The only way CO2 could cause changes in precipitation, would by increasing temperatures, and as temperatures have not increased in the last 16yrs it is just not happening.
