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French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

france24.com

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Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#381

Post by falloon »

dualvariable wrote: post #150
falloon wrote: post #112

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.

Cumulonimbus has been separated from its etymological roots. It now refers to the physics that can produce deep convection, high clouds, and the formation of an anvil shape (along with lightning, etc). The convection that produces a cumulonimbus rain cloud is present in a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. The word isn't wrong.

Well, I was confidently wrong about that. I stand corrected, thanks for the pointers.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#382

Post by pvaldes »

tremon wrote: post #240
timpera wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Le Monde: > Some efforts have begun to diversify the Landes forest and to maintain or promote deciduous trees, particularly along the edges of plots. The major difficulty, according to foresters, is that very few species are able to grow in this region, where the sandy soil is very poor and very acidic (it is one of the poorest soils in Europe). Foresters describe the maritime pine as a "miracle species" in this…

Is the solution repeated burning of pine to enrich the soil, making it easier for other tree species to gain a foothold in the area?

Burning the pine is how you end with a soil composed of 90% sand. Respecting the slow building of fertile soil is basic. There are several decicuous trees able to grow in very acid soils. Not so much in acid, plus sandy, plus salty.

A fact that is not being noticed is that pine trees forests evolve naturally to substitute the pines with a bigger mix of species so if you plant a pine monoculture you need to manage it to keep the monoculture. This forest evolution happens for free by natural means unless:

Sheep enter the forest or...

Weather is very cold or very hot or...

Soil is really poor, because wildfires.

Keep controlled this variables for a generation and the flammable monoculture problem will fix itself. All forests evolve to be eventually less flammable, but they need time to do this.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#383

Post by cineticdaffodil »

rixed wrote: post #175
cineticdaffodil wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain planted eucalyptus in state forrest. Tha treeis a bomb.

You are answering "tree is bomb" to someone explaining why over panicking does a disservice to your cause. Regarding eucalyptus burning: a lot of them burned suddenly after a policy change allowing land to be repurposed after wildfires, I've just been told by locals.

Explain not with malice, what can be explained by stupidity. Eucalyptus is part of a fire ecology.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#384

Post by c7b »

hahahaa wrote: post #279
c7b wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you want a credit you need to plant 5x the trees under this system.

Ok. But what about just making the credits 5x more expensive without requiring monstrous bookkeeping of tree populations and their associated credits over centuries?

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#385

Post by pvaldes »

tirant wrote: post #237
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

Blaming everything on global warming is extremely dangerous. It fails to address many other reasons why we are experiencing fires and creates an easy to blame enemy and a sensation that there's nothing we can do. We should really go way deeper than just blaming everything on an increase of temperatures, which nevertheless is actually happening. We, locals, have been warning already for decades of the increase of fire…

> The problem is that species that grow slow are not being used and they would be less flammable

> The problem is that sheep are not allowed to graze

Choose one. Slow growing saplings, or sheep grazing on slow growing saplings.

> The problem is that many techniques to regenerate fresh grass for livestock are forbidden.

Because is a forest, not a meadow. The goal shouldn't be to breed sheep here. Farmers are always pressing to remove just a few trees, to make space, to burn bush for "regenerating grass". In the current situation, their short term interests aren't compatible with our middle and long term survival.

> The problem is that people migrated to the city

Good. Most wildfires are caused by people

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#386

Post by runeks »

dualvariable wrote: post #150
falloon wrote: post #112

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.

Cumulonimbus has been separated from its etymological roots. It now refers to the physics that can produce deep convection, high clouds, and the formation of an anvil shape (along with lightning, etc). The convection that produces a cumulonimbus rain cloud is present in a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. The word isn't wrong.

Comment threads like these are why I read HN comments.

Thank you for the insights, both of you.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#387

Post by watwut »

baxtr wrote: post #370
watwut wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then focus on effects of climate rather then trying to make the rest of us shut up.

The likelihood of me getting you to focus on the effects on climate change are much higher than you convincing some lunatics. So I try not to shut you up, I try to funnel your energy. We both have the same ultimate goal.

First of all, "lunatics" are on the rise. They are largely winning and one of contributing factors is that non-lunatics did not opposed them for the sake of peace again and again.

Second, effects of climate change will just get worst if climate change itself is not addressed.

Third, you cant address effects of climate change if the only voices speaking are the "actually there is no climate change" voices.

> So I try not to shut you up, I try to funnel your energy.

We are talking about HN comments. Not about some grand advocacy. The only effect of us listening to you here is ... write nothing and move to comments thread about AI.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#388

Post by zahlman »

rectang wrote: post #367
zahlman wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this about some kind of sense of "justice", or is it about solving the problem ?

Geoengineering proposals are often unserious because the point is to give the appearance of doing something while the root cause goes unaddressed. "No need to reconsider those fossil fuel subsidies because [fanciful geoengineering proposal] will save the day!"

That has not at all been my experience of listening to such people.

And, what subsidies? The fossil fuel companies are just trying not to get legislated out of business, last I checked. In my book the disruptive subsidies are for corn (encouraging irresponsible land use; solar panels in those fields would be far more energy efficient).

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#389

Post by Arodex »

jcattle wrote: post #380
Arodex wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, I'm well aware that Landes naturally should be an extensive sandy marsh. No, it shouldn't. It used to be a forest but was cut down by firewood and sheep grazing. Stop with the "return to nature" fallacy. With how things are going, even "natural" forests are going to burn down.

Ah, I thought that was the main vegetation present beforehand? What kind of forest was it before it was cut down?

A mixed forest with oak, beech and the like, as you can find higher north. But that was during the middle ages' European "little ice age", when the winters were much colder, and the Thames and the Netherlands froze over. That's also likely the reason why the forest was cut so much to feed fires.

https://daily.jstor.org/climate-canvasses-of-the-little-ice-...

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#390

Post by rectang »

zahlman wrote: post #388
rectang wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geoengineering proposals are often unserious because the point is to give the appearance of doing something while the root cause goes unaddressed. "No need to reconsider those fossil fuel subsidies because [fanciful geoengineering proposal] will save the day!"

That has not at all been my experience of listening to such people. And, what subsidies ? The fossil fuel companies are just trying not to get legislated out of business, last I checked. In my book the disruptive subsidies are for corn (encouraging irresponsible land use; solar panels in those fields would be far more energy efficient).

I’m as uninterested in debating someone who denies the existence of fossil fuel subsidies as I am in debating climate denialists. I recommend that interested parties perform a trivial web search.
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