What is the connection between climate change and the black Thursday bushfires (1851) or the black Friday fires (1939) or Ash Wednesday (1983)? My point is that bushfires are not a new phenomenon in Victoria. The 1939 fires destroyed far more bush than did the fires in 2009. You have failed to make any firm correlation between climate change and a single event. Of course I am not a scientist, then again neither it seems are you.

Thank you to OLO for posting this article by Tony Kevin. (off topic) I first read this article in New Matilda, which is going to close because of financial trouble. I am no scientist but it does seem peculiar that the Commission did not include any hypothesis (evidence) regarding so called climate change in their deliberations and findings. I remember the Ash Wednesday, and the 1939 fires in Victoria but cannot comment on the state of the damp gullies of the mountain regions from any scientific viewpoint, but I remember that no matter how hot the summers were in Vic. those ferny gullies were always damp, always. Kevin stated
that this time, they were dry. Surely this must indicate some changes
which were different from any other time.. Just thinking out loud from an old lady pensioner.

Victoria's wet mountain forest ash species eucalypts have evolved to only regenerate after very hot fires which generally only occur during severe drought which dries out the gully systems sufficiently to allow such fires to spread rapidly and burn with great intensity. There are old b/w photos of the aftermath of the 1939 fires which show whole watersheds absolutely decimated.

So, what happened on Black Saturday is nothing new, although it could be argued that the frequency of these conditions is increasing given that we have had fires of similar intensity in 2003 and 2006, which because they occured in remote places where few people live have attracted far less attention.

Whether or not climate change should have been examined in detail by the RC is another matter. I wouldn't have thought it would've be helpful to have the whole show taken over by the sort of hysteria that accompanies debate on whether or whether it is not occurring. However, I can see that those who are campaigning for climate change action could view the RC as an opportunity to exert more political pressure.

Graham, surely we have had enough of this flood of global warming propaganda from the halls of the ANU.

I think we had one from the ANU prof for tiddly winks the other day, didn't we? One can only assume that either they are getting some special treatment from Rudd & co for this muck, or are having the heavies put on them, to repay past favours.

What ever it is, enough is enough.

Lets us thank our lucky stars that some concoction of the Global Warming rubbish was not allowed to be used to get some very slack public servants off the hook. This commission has proved to be one with much more integrity than the UK inquiries set up to white wash the Climate Research Unit & their fellow travellers.

I guess you don't want to apply some form of the tainted "peer review" system to your articles, but surely a bull s##t detector would be in order by now.

I find it rather unethical to use the suffering of so many, for a cheap properganda exercise.

So the bush fires are a direct consequence of climate change? The spurious message seems to be that the man made component of a changing climate would overwhelm all the natural forces that impinge on weather/climate.
Interestingly there are a number of Fellows of the Royal Society that are questioning the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. Such is the force of this movement that Royal Society itself will review its previous dogmatic statements on this matter.
Please refer to an article in the London Telegraph of 28thMay 2010.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7776326/Royal-Society-to-re-examine-climate-message.html

This author is a complete nutter. He has form in writing about the Siev X, trying to make a connection of australian involvement by way of sabotage. He is nothing more than a wild eyed conspiracy theorist.

Now he is trying to connect the black saturday fires and AGW. It is as though previous fires have not occured.

His theories should simply be ignored.

It is a pity our tax money is used to employ him. That is our shame

So the bushfire commission isn't jumping on the green hobby horse du jour? Cry me a river.

To claim that the Black Saturday bushfires were somehow exceptional, is to completely ignore Victoria's history for the last couple of centuries.

The only exceptional thing about Black Saturday was the loss of life, which is more likely attributable to changing demographic patterns in rural areas. Previous big fires dwarfed Black Saturday in terms of the area burned and the intensity of the fires.

OLO Forum again confirms its reputation as a sheltered workshop for climate change deniers.

Does anyone here know how to use a URL smart-key that is embedded in the text of my article:

"Yet it was already clear to the public in the days after the fires that Victoria was in new climate territory. **A feature article** by Michael Bachelard and Melissa Fyfe in The Age reported climate scientists' views that these were “fires of climate change”."

The article referred to is

http://www.theage.com.au/national/lessons-from-the-ashes-20090215-8810.html

"Lessons from the Ashes", Michael Bachelard and Melissa Fyfe, The Age,15 February 2009

The role of climate change in exacerbating the ferocity of the fires on Black Saturday is fully explained in the last section of that article (which I summarised). Yes, there is a little bit of mathematics-based discussion there of Forest Fire Danger Indexes. (This is how scientists measure and compare complex multi-cause things like bushfire danger). And the authors talked to a scientific expert, one of Australia's top meteorologists.

I won't respond to the personal abuse

Tony, the fact that a bunch of greenie journalists, & academics jumped onto the AGW band wagon, after the fires says much more about the ethics of these people, than the cause of the fires.

In fact it was mostly greenie obstructionism, in preventing fuel reduction burns, & the clearing of adequate private firebreaks, that killed so many people. Shame is not something greens do well.

Greenies have much to pay for where real people live.

This is a most inappropriate suggestion, by an author who should know better.

It has been drawn to his attention many times, that there is no scientific basis for the assertion of anthropogenic global warming. The IPCC’s assertion, of "very likely", is a guess, with no scientific basis.

The peer reviewed, and well accepted science shows that the warming comes about from natural causes, leaving no room for the assertion of any input by human emissions.

There is nothing unprecedented about the conditions, and no basis for looking at “climate change”, to investigate the destruction wrought by the bush fires.

What is worth investigating, is how one landholder, in the area, bush fire proofed his property, by breaching laws instigated by the environazis, incurring fines and legal costs totalling over $100,000.00, to save his property from bushfire, using tried and true, but now outlawed methods.

This is the true scandal, of this regrettable situation. The cover up of the true causes of the disaster, and the proven methods of prevention of bushfire damage.

The causes have nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with green fanatacism.

What a nonsensical article you reference, Tony. Did you read it?

“The smoke generated by fuel reduction burning affects people’s respiratory health, particularly asthma sufferers. Another constraint is the environment itself.”

What would be preferable, a little respitory discomfort, or being burnt to death?

Our victim property owner, cruelly punished for saving his home from bushfire, by taking appropriate preventative action, should be consulted, instead of the dunces used as the source of the information in this article.

I am sure that his first advice would be to carry out action on the ground, on the day, and to disregard the nonsense of the “experts” who contributed input to the article which our AGW alarmist, Tony, recommends.

By the way, Tony, I am a realist, not a denier. You are the denier, of the science in relation to AGW. You have no science which supports your assertions, and deny the science which disproves them.

Our prevention successful property owner’s advice would be incredibly valuable, worth far more than the $100,000.00 taken from him, in costs and fines, for protecting his own property. It would be money well spent, if he could be persuaded to impart his wisdom.

tonykevy "OLO Forum again confirms its reputation as a sheltered workshop for climate change deniers"

Throws the usual personal insults at skeptics .. then, after sprouting that an article from the Age, of all places, is now holy writ ..

Leaves the field with a cry of "I won't respond to the personal abuse"

The AGW cause is pretty well done now, so we just get to watch the frantic and hysterical final throes of the hypocrites and their anguish.

TONY KEVIN SAYS....

The Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission seems to be ignoring the relevance of climate change as a factor in Black Saturday.

Well Tony.. you might understand it if you saw my comments in another thread.. and how CORRUPT (and/or gullible)the whole Green Cult is.. and how CLIMATE CHANGE has been hyped up for one reason and one reason alone...

to me ME and my mate Maurice Strong and our network of left wing corporate capitalists EXTREMELY RICH...and worse.. POW-ER-FUL.

When you speak as you did.. using the term as if it was a given.. a fact... you show just how sucked in 'you' are... to the whole SCAM and capitalist trick that Climate change so called is.

Tony..do you have SHARES in Envex?

I think that it's very likely that the Black Saturday fires will come to be seen retrospectively in the context of AGW, but that there isn't enough evidence yet to establish a causal link.

Regardless of other historical bushfires, the fact remains that Black Saturday was the hottest day ever recorded in Melbourne. But that's weather, rather than climate.

While I'm in general agreement with the thrust of Tony Kevin's article, I think he's left himself wide open to justifiable criticism from the denialist pack.

The existence of sub-climax forest types such as tall wet eucalypts which burn at intervals of up to 400 years is patently the result of an extended period of evolution.

This indicates that wet forests will periodically dry out to the point of flammability, not often, and when they do, a lot of fuel causes intense behaviour. It's not new, and the occurrence of the highest (recorded) temperature (by 0.2 degrees C) in the 100 odd years proper measurements have been taken is no evidence of an increase.

The connection you make between the bushfires and AGW is spurious and ideological.

What everyone here seems to have missed is that it does not matter
whether global warming has any part in the bushfires or not.
The brigades have to fight the fires as they are and not because
someone says its all to do with global warming.

Out in the bush with a pumper, it matters not a fig about AGW !

If climate change had any influence on how dry or how hot it was then it influenced how severe the fires were and deserves consideration; it looks highly probable that it did, with BoM data showing a trend of more record hot weather and less record cold weather. And, just as important as the changes in high temperatures is the impact of climate change on minimum temperatures across all seasons - which impact the amount of drying as well as on opportunities to safely conduct fuel reduction burning. Without AGW those record heat waves - and the fires - would almost certainly have been less severe. Without those record high minimum temps - and the lost opportunities for reduction of fuel loads - the fires would have been less severe.

I don't want the other factors ignored but nor should this factor be ignored.

That so many of the climate science denialists here are so pleased that it fails to get consideration is just a measure of how desperately they are wishing for this issue to go away. It won't.

Just why the Commission has failed to look at the impacts of climate change on recent fires and potential impacts on future ones needs asking and I thank the author for doing so. If it's because of reluctance to complicate their inquiries with something 'controversial' then that would indicate denialist leanings within the commission - AGW isn't controversial except for the fake, puffed up, ideological think-tank generated 'controversy' that relies completely on dismissing the abundant legitimate science out of hand in favour of dubious counter-'science'.

Oh Ken "how desperately they are wishing for this issue to go away. It won't"

Then next says "Just why the Commission has failed to look at the impacts of climate change on recent fires and potential impacts on future ones needs asking and I thank the author for doing so"

That's called answering your own question ..

You say it won't go away .. but it did ! LOL!

Ken Fabos writes:

“AGW isn't controversial except for the fake, puffed up, ideological think-tank generated 'controversy' that relies completely on dismissing the abundant legitimate science out of hand in favour of dubious counter-'science'.”

Oh such certainty! Who dares to argue against such dogmatism? Such certainty comes from faith. It has no part in empirical science.

In an earlier post on this thread I drew attention to a group of Fellows of the Royal Society requesting a review of the science behind the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (AGWH).
I also understand that the French Academy of Sciences will be reviewing the scientific evidence later in the year.
Finally, there is much published on the web, by competent climate scientists, which questions the claims of AGWH. These should be objectively discussed and refuted, (if possible) by evidence and not by meaningless polemics.

I used to be a professional 'greenie'. I drew a wage for it!

During this time I saw how "greenie" is a religion with a belief system that has grown less rational as it has grown more powerful.

Saving small fluffy animals from fire is good? No! Not if it is done by preventing hazard-reduction burning. A patchwork of small, cool winter fires kills few furry animals.

But the vast hot holocaust of a the inevitable bushfires, which lay waste huge areas of forest kills vast numbers of 'fluffies', as well as trees, sheep, towns and people.

Rules like the wind requirement. There needs to be some wind to blow away the evil smoke pollution, but not too much, or the fire may escape. These goldilocks rules make it impossible to do the hazard reduction burning that is needed.

A myriad of little rules put in by greenies have made effective hazard reduction impractical. The result is a cycle of inevitable enviromental (and human) destruction every 10 years or so.

Ken Fabos, the denialists are the pushers of AGW, despite the fact that there is no scientific backing for the assertion of any contribution by human emissions. You are a denialist, ken, in your refusal to accept the absence of any science to support AGW, or the science which shows that the warming, which occurs, is all accounted from natural sources.

This is the state of the science. There is no scientific basis for the assertion of AGW, and there is peer reviewed science to show that it is untenable.

You call the realists “denialists”. All that they deny is your baseless assertions, while you deny the established science which is contrary to your nonsense.

Not one of the posts, here, backing this vacuous article, put forward any scientific basis for the assertion of AGW.

The observed effects of human activity, such as heat islands, which have supported, in the public mind, the unscientific assertion of the IPCC that AGW is “very likely”, have no support from scientific evaluation, despite the billions spent in the desperate quest for scientific justification of the mendacious IPCC’s baseless “very likely”.

The output of human activities has no measurable significance in relation to global warming.

Why, with no scientific basis, Ken, do you support the AGW fraud?.

Nowhere in Tony Kevin’s article, or subsequent posts, does he give any scientific basis for the assertion of AGW. He ignores the requests for an acceptable basis, and reasserts his baseless theme.

He has no credibility, but hangs on, hoping to fool the gullible.

Thanks, partTimeParent for a genuine rundown on the pernicious greens.

This has been posted on another thread, it seems appropriate to post it here too.

http://tinyurl.com/understanding-denial

The bush fires? They were exacerbated by extreme climatic conditions, that is all - just expect more of it.

Thanks, qanda, for confirming that you have no science to back up the unscientific assertion that human emissions have any measureable effect on global warming.

You might explain why you consider anyone is interested in another article by the deranged Debora MacKenzie.

I suppose you cannot wait for another period of excitement, which you experienced when the Climategate miscreants posted a "study", peer reviewed by associates of the fraudsters, and rushed it to publication, purporting to refute the settled science which excludes any basis for the assertion of AGW.

While they stalled the publication of the refutation of their baseless study, it was a heady time for you qanda, asserting that the pretend science from the discredited East Anglia group had refuted the real science. I cannot see such a travesty happening again, so do not expect such a time to come again.

On the other hand, you have resisted the truth all this time, so you may never accept it.

Why you were so excitedd, when there was never any science to back up the IPCC's weasel worded "very likely", I do not know. "Refuting" the real science did not add any credibility to the pretend science that you so ineptly push.

Of course I will never understand people like you, who deny true science, a peer reviewed study by reputable scientists, demonstrating that there is no room for the perennially touted, never proven, "very likely" of IPCC. You are a true denialist, who has the hide to call people, who assert real science, "deniers'.

You are a confused fellow, qanda. You should keep away from denial sites like Wikipedia and Realclimate. They are dishonest.

Even Gore has given up on that, and thinks we should not look to fact, because it disproves his assertions in his film, which won a prize for presenting 35 lies in only 90 minutes. It also won him a fan club, which assembles and chants "liar" and "fraud", whenever he appears in public.

Take care, qanda. Asserting nonsense can have repercussions.

Banjo: You know the Haitian earthquake was blamed on AGW. The Icelandic volcano, most probably the recent Venuatu volcanic eruption, the Lennox head Tornado, and of course the catastrophic sea level rises. (Where you ask)

Tell these people in 1831 Major Thomas Mitchell went through to Tamworth and beyond and noticed bush fires, too.

Climate has nothing to do with bush fires. As it was it was thought
that an electrical fault was to blame. Wires fell from an electricity
pole and ignited dry matter at its base.

What people or some do not acknowledge is climate is what we expect
and weather is what we get. Weather kills us. So do volcanoes, and earthquakes, Tsunamis, floods. Not to forget plagues, swine flu (?) and mosquitoes. If anything the globe ain't getting
warmer we are graduating to another mini or worse glacial period, and there is nothing we poor bipeds can do about it. Because CO2 doesn't change climates, period.

You know what some twit said, that gum trees only became fire resilient in the last 150 years. Give me patience Oh weather God.

"Victoria's wet mountain forest ash species eucalypts have evolved to only regenerate after very hot fires which generally only occur during severe drought which dries out the gully systems sufficiently to allow such fires to spread rapidly and burn with great intensity. " MWPoynter

More nonsense from a man who is supposed to know about forests.

I know of numerous sites where Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forest has different age classes. If you go to Cambarville near Marysville you will see old growth Ash forest in excess of 200 years old with at least two generations of Ash regeneration underneath and a rainforest understory. (Not sure if it survived Black Saturday but it survived 1851 and 1939) The regrowth is/was a result of cool fires that were not hot enough to kill mature trees.

The myth of the climax Ash forest is fostered by the timber industry so that the public don't get too upset by the slash and burn clearfelling holocaust that passes for forestry amongst those neanderthals.

If you want to see climate change in action start looking at the number of dead trees appearing in forests. Moisture stress is thinning the forests, all types of forest. If that doesn't convince you start looking at the number of tree ferns dying in formerly wet gullies.

I know sites where up to half the tree ferns have died in the last ten years. Many of the tree ferns would have been hundreds of years old.

The timber industry doesn't want people to think about the impacts of climate change on forest because it won't be long before the timber industry is identified as a key process compounding the effects of climate change. In terms of the causes of forests becoming more flammable with climate change, the timber industry is second only to anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Ridiculous as it sounds, I have a science background. Climate change, specifically anthropogenic climate change, has bypassed all the normal scientific protocols completely. Ordinarily, an idea starts as a hypothesis. If it cannot be disproven, it becomes a theory. If it can be proven as well as not be disproven, it becomes law. This is why we have Darwin's THEORY of evolution and Newtons LAW of gravity etc. Even pointing this out will have me tarred as a "denyer" etc.

The scientific approach, in deciding if anthropogenic climate change has played a part in the fires, would be first to gain reliable baseline data. This is fairly easy, by ascertaining the amount of charcoal in the soil profile. Alone, this wont tell you much about the intensity of historic fires. Combine it with pollen records in peat swamps etc. and isotopic signatures in the geological record, and its quite esily apparent whether its a valid concern.

Unfortunately, the socio-political considerations are that the final outcome is decided before any research has been done. You would be unlikely to get any funding to research an open-ended question like that. The unscientific layman often uses climate and weather interchangeably, though they are not the same. You will never find agreement amongst environmental scientists what an appropriate level of burning frequency is for any given bioregional ecosystem, and the concept of mosaic-burning is completely lost on fire authorities.

Its a tragedy what has happened in Victoria. It should not be used for any political platform or soapbox, or to hassle the police about not acting properly.

Maaate are you serious? You have no idea. The timber industry doesn't create ash forests - disturbance does. These forests existed before logging because they they are a disclimax community - the only way they can perpetuate is via a major disturbance. And if you can tell us a disturbance other than fire can occur over such a large area then congratulations - you have rewritten history.

The only fire disturbance that can recreate a wet sclerophyll forest over a large area is a crown fire. In some cases, sheltered slopes reduces the effects of these crown fires and different levels of disturbance occurs which leads to an uneven structure as the dominant trees survive a fire but there is enuogh disturbance to allow regeneration. But this is the exception not the rule.

Climate change in the way you insinuate has nothing to do with it. CO2 wasn't an issue in 1851 nor was it in 1926 and 1939. Tree ferns have been dying and recovering for millenia - tell us something we already don't know. You need to understand the effects of wet and dry (aka droughts). Read history and you will realise the big conflagarations occurred at the end of severe drought years.

You can pontificate about climate change all you want but the fact remains that nature is ignoring your diatribe. Wildfires which kill and then assist these forests to regenerate have occurred before logging and without anthropogenic global warming.

Open your mind maate before you embarass yourself is my advise. Just because YOU don't like logging doesn't mean it is envrionmentally destructive. Everyone has their own perceptions and clearly yours is less informed.

"the only way they can perpetuate is via a major disturbance."

I've told you what I've seen with my own eyes and it clearly refutes your dogma but you still want to argue with me?

You're a fool.

I don't give a stuff if you believe in AGW or not. I don't bother arguing with deniers anymore as they are invariably ideology driven freaks. The consensus in the scientific community is good enough for me. Don't bother quoting a few fruitloop outliers, call me when you have majority opinion against AGW amongst climate scientists.

Irrespective of AGW, industrial forestry practices contribute to the flammability of forests through disturbance to the hydrological systems and physical structure of forests. If you want to provide arguments to counter that point go right ahead but don't insult my intelligence with your dogmatic braindead waffle.