This graph by Robert Rohde illustrates two crucial points about wildfire and climate change that are being neglected by the media and scientists which are vital to policy. Let’s take a look 🧵1/ @RARohde
First of all, it is trivially true that global warming increases potential fire weather. All else equal, with higher temps there would be more drying of vegetation, yet there’s been no actual fire increase. 2/
So let’s take a look at what really matters for wildfire risk and climate change. 3/
The temperature affect of urbanization is far stronger in more “rural” areas. From 0-400 people per 10km^2 there is twice as much warming as from 700-2100people. The affect also decreases over time. 🧵1/ drroyspencer.com/2023/03/urbani…
This makes sense for several reason.
1. Economic activity & technology become more efficient over time.
2. There are diminishing returns to amount of heating an additional person can do in an area.
3. Urban areas have shifted to service based economies.
4. Greenhouse Warming & feedbacks. 2/
The diminishing difference between rural & urban heating is probably due to the greenhouse effect & feedbacks (increased plant respiration from CO2 fertilization, increased nighttime humidity from increasing transpiration in rural areas, dew & fog releasing latent heat near the surface at night.) 3/