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French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

france24.com

121–130 of 394 posts

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#121

I’m sure if we build a few more AI data centers the world will cool down and we’ll stop having all these fires. Just a few more GPUs ought to fix it.

I always though it would be funny if we actually did manage to get to super AGI, we then ask it "How can we save the future for us?"

It thinks for a few days, cross comparing everything in written history and then comes back with only a single sentence.

"Love the Earth and life like you love yourselves."

Then it goes quiet not answering anything else.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#122
post #30
post #12

Just had the same here in Washington state for the Little Giant fire. Great image in the article. We had another fire cloud behind Rainier the other day, and saw it from the Rount Mainier farm - it really looked like the volcano was smoking up and ready to top-off. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/little...

"East" of Seattle is certainly one way to describe it (100 miles east).

Would you feel weird with someone saying 100 miles North of Miami, 100 miles Sourth of Orlando, 100 miles west of Huston, 100 miles South of Chicago?

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#123

Pedantic cloud enjoyer here, the article should name this a pyrocumulus not pyrocumulonimbus - the nimbus part means 'rain-bearing' in meteorology, fire clouds don't rain.

It rains ash. While it’s a metaphorical use of “rain” it’s physically accurate.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#124

Pedantic cloud enjoyer here, the article should name this a pyrocumulus not pyrocumulonimbus - the nimbus part means 'rain-bearing' in meteorology, fire clouds don't rain.

To be fair, it's not the article that's the problem. Pyrocumulonimbus is the accepted scientific name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_flammagenitus .

Thanks for the article. However, the article mentions that they might involve precipitation.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#125
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"East" of Seattle is certainly one way to describe it (100 miles east).

Would you feel weird with someone saying 100 miles North of Miami, 100 miles Sourth of Orlando, 100 miles west of Huston, 100 miles South of Chicago?

If they left of the distance yes.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#126
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would non-permanent credits even work? You purchase the carbon-offset option on a flight, a tree gets planted somewhere, ten years later it burns in a wildfire. Then what?

I suggest an adjusted value taking burn into account. E.g. you use 20% or whatever of the value. Theory: it ain't 0 if you plant a tree and it is not the whole tree. There has to be a % that represents on average the effectiveness of the plant over 200 years say. This also addresses the tree death issue.

So 20% of the trees get planted later or maybe never? How is that better?

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#127

Pedantic cloud enjoyer here, the article should name this a pyrocumulus not pyrocumulonimbus - the nimbus part means 'rain-bearing' in meteorology, fire clouds don't rain.

Incorrect. These fires basically create their own weather systems. All that smoke also contains a lot of water in the material that is burning. (That makes sense. They are trees, after all.) When the smoke reaches high enough in the atmosphere the smoke cools and water can precipitate out (rain) and also lightning potentially producing more fires.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#128
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's not the article that's the problem. Pyrocumulonimbus is the accepted scientific name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_flammagenitus .

Thanks for the article. However, the article mentions that they might involve precipitation.

Yes, they might. The grandparent comment of this thread in multiple different ways, not just the name.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#129
post #56

Spain is also completely on fire - there's a website that collects all official information and locates every fire on a map: https://xn--incendiosespaa-2nb.es/ (in Spanish) It is disheartening to see how everything is basically in red.

Statements like these embolden climate change deniers because they look so panicked beyond reason. Spain isn’t “completely on fire” and Spain frequently has fires like California.

You need to quantify in sq km or some other objective unit what makes this so unique.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#130
post #12

Just had the same here in Washington state for the Little Giant fire. Great image in the article. We had another fire cloud behind Rainier the other day, and saw it from the Rount Mainier farm - it really looked like the volcano was smoking up and ready to top-off. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/little...

Some more photos without a paywall. https://westseattleblog.com/2026/07/about-that-huge-cloud-vi...
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