Our review focuses on forest fires in southeast Australia (NSW + ACT + Victoria).
Excited to be able to share this comprehensive review on the many ways that climate change is increasing bushfire risk in southeast Australia, just published in @CommsEarth.
Thread 👇 describing what we found:
[paper is open
Our review focuses on forest fires in southeast Australia (NSW + ACT + Victoria).
*In their scale (23% of all southeast Australia forests were burnt)
*In their power (for every month of the spring and summer seasons), and
*In the number of fires that developed into extreme pyroconvective events
Regional warming is part of human-caused global warming trend.
Dry conditions were part of a 3-year drought with consecutive winter rain failures. Long-term winter drying trend appears to be emerging.
And years of large bushfires in southeast Australia have clustered in the hot-&-dry quadrant of historical climate conditions
The phases of climate variability that increase fire risk in southeast Australia are El Niño events, positive Indian Ocean Dipole events, and a negative Southern Annular Mode in the warm season.
In 2019 the compound effects of +IOD and -SAM increased the extent and severity of fire risk in southeast Australia.
Fire-promoting phases of tropical climate variability have now become more frequent than any time in the last several hundred years.
High FFDI reflects conditions where fuels burn readily and dangerous fire weather make fire difficult to control.
Despite this, FFDI has continued to be a good indicator of historical fires, including the #BlackSummer fires.
Radiative power and FFDI in southeast Australia were both the highest ever recorded in December of 2019.
*the largest forest burn area ever recorded, and
*the greatest number of extreme pyroconvective events ever observed.
FFDI emergence is greatest in spring/summer.
Emergence also evident in Vapour Pressure Deficit – one of the prime factors linked to increasing fire risk in other parts of the world.
Some of these changes are virtually certain, others still have moderate or only low scientific confidence.
Climate change is expected to increase fire risk in many ways, esp. through drier fuels and more dangerous fire weather
But climate change will continue to increase fire risk in southeast Australia, possibly at a very rapid rate.
https://t.co/jergTykcdf
More from News
.@louiscasiano from @FoxNews reached out to ask if we are actually planning on contaminating the hotel rooms of Proud Boys with bedbugs. The short answer is no, we don't even know if that's possible. But here's our full response.
That post was clearly satire. We have no idea how one would actually go about the activity that was suggested.
What is not satire are the numerous death threats that were sent to us by Trump supporters in the lead up to the November election.
Here are a few tweets depicting detailed and credible death threats that you didn’t ask for comment on:
https://t.co/UiI12M0Aey.
https://t.co/PPe75XWImX
https://t.co/4Ia8659wK8
https://t.co/n5ov6R8Gyh
Each of those tweets includes the email address of the sender. We wish you luck in reaching out to them for comment.
Further, the hate crimes committed by the Proud Boys during their last visit to DC were not satire. A marauding band of drunk white nationalists stormed through our city, tearing down and burning religious symbols declaring respect for Black lives.
That post was clearly satire. We have no idea how one would actually go about the activity that was suggested.
What is not satire are the numerous death threats that were sent to us by Trump supporters in the lead up to the November election.
Here are a few tweets depicting detailed and credible death threats that you didn’t ask for comment on:
https://t.co/UiI12M0Aey.
https://t.co/PPe75XWImX
https://t.co/4Ia8659wK8
https://t.co/n5ov6R8Gyh
Yup. They have no interest in public safety. Inspector Glover is doing everything he can to support @realDonaldTrump's coup. @MayorBowser get your cops in line. pic.twitter.com/VAAu58v7N5
— ShutDownDC (@ShutDown_DC) November 15, 2020
Each of those tweets includes the email address of the sender. We wish you luck in reaching out to them for comment.
Further, the hate crimes committed by the Proud Boys during their last visit to DC were not satire. A marauding band of drunk white nationalists stormed through our city, tearing down and burning religious symbols declaring respect for Black lives.
A quick thread on the new variant, pulling together information from news sources, twitter, genomic databases, and word from well-placed peers.
The new variant in the UK consists of several mutations in the spike protein, including ΔH69/ΔV70 deletions & other receptor binding domain mutations such as N501Y.
The variant is described here in this pre-print from @GuptaR_lab.
https://t.co/ui2U1r1ANA
The ΔH69/ΔV70 variant continues to increase quite rapidly as a proportion of overall positives (roughly doubling in the last 2 to three days), and is apparently now the dominant strain in test positives in some regions.
Extensive efforts have gone into enhanced surveillance for the ΔH69/ΔV70 deletion with and without RBD mutations, and it is good that we are aware of this.
There is a need for calm and rational thinking, and more evidence is needed.
But the early data is certainly concerning
Cabinet has been summoned for call at lunchtime. Lots of concern about new data on virus in parts of England, feels like fast moving situation. https://t.co/308YsJEVGw
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) December 19, 2020
The new variant in the UK consists of several mutations in the spike protein, including ΔH69/ΔV70 deletions & other receptor binding domain mutations such as N501Y.
The variant is described here in this pre-print from @GuptaR_lab.
https://t.co/ui2U1r1ANA
The ΔH69/ΔV70 variant continues to increase quite rapidly as a proportion of overall positives (roughly doubling in the last 2 to three days), and is apparently now the dominant strain in test positives in some regions.
Extensive efforts have gone into enhanced surveillance for the ΔH69/ΔV70 deletion with and without RBD mutations, and it is good that we are aware of this.
There is a need for calm and rational thinking, and more evidence is needed.
But the early data is certainly concerning
I'm hesitating to read or listen to this for fear it oversimplifies. I worked for about a year @NYPDnews on this. We learned a LOT. Most of the $320 million I estimate was lost by New Yorkers on Cyber-enabled scams in 2019 began with voice calls to set the hook...
Looking through our empirical data, we see that scam calls dominate the world of Cyber-enabled (which doesn't include ransomware or network intrusion/takeover, but does include crime that leverages a digital channel for some aspect of the attack).
We found that NYPD officers, when empowered to combat this kind of crime with training and tools, were champing at the bit to get out there and fight it. They all know the scams are out there - many told us of family members who'd fallen victim - but they felt powerless to act...
I personally blame the Feds, who over the past two decades have worked hard to make all "Cybercrime" seem (a) mysterious and sophisticated to the extent that (b) only the Feds could combat it, through tools like the IC3 survey. That tool is actually quite ineffective.
As I said at RSA2020, for Cyber-enabled scams, IC3's survey is the place where good leads go to die. For example, in 2018 around zero point three three percent of cases reported to it were ultimately investigated by a task force. They're just snowed under. https://t.co/IxjM6t0cfm
Looking through our empirical data, we see that scam calls dominate the world of Cyber-enabled (which doesn't include ransomware or network intrusion/takeover, but does include crime that leverages a digital channel for some aspect of the attack).
We found that NYPD officers, when empowered to combat this kind of crime with training and tools, were champing at the bit to get out there and fight it. They all know the scams are out there - many told us of family members who'd fallen victim - but they felt powerless to act...
I personally blame the Feds, who over the past two decades have worked hard to make all "Cybercrime" seem (a) mysterious and sophisticated to the extent that (b) only the Feds could combat it, through tools like the IC3 survey. That tool is actually quite ineffective.
As I said at RSA2020, for Cyber-enabled scams, IC3's survey is the place where good leads go to die. For example, in 2018 around zero point three three percent of cases reported to it were ultimately investigated by a task force. They're just snowed under. https://t.co/IxjM6t0cfm
