The reality of Atmospheric Carbon Acceleration will create new weather events unlike any we have known unless we all aggressively work to stop climate change. Climate Change Denial Syndrome prevents people from taking action as they cling to false beliefs to protect their personal worldviews and investment in the Carbon Economy
“As much as I hate to say it, this is what the future of wildfires looks like,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “Except the acceleration hasn’t ended yet.”
In 2017, fires had set new state records for size and destruction. Those records would fall again in 2018 as flames threatened Yosemite National Park, torched mansions in Malibu and, in the worst fire in California history, wiped out the Sierra foothills town of Paradise. Ninety-three civilians and six firefighters would die. The Carr Fire Tornado had jumped a river, blasted across fields, leveled neighborhoods and rendered the landscape smooth and alien.
The Science Behind California’s “Fire Tornado” from Smithsonian Magazine What made the Redding fire whirl a true and terrifying oddball was the intensity of the Carr Fire and the high ambient air temperatures, which have been near triple digits, likely added extra energy to the whirl.
A 30,000-foot-tall convection column — a plume filled with ash, debris and hydrocarbons — ballooned in the sky, condensing into fluffy pyrocumulus clouds. The column acted like the lid on a pot of boiling water. When you took it off, oxygen fed the fire, sucking up the hot air. Flames soared 400 feet in the air. It would grow to 1,000 feet wide, the length of three football fields, and produce temperatures double those of a typical wildfire. Its howling obliterated every other sound.
ABC Laura Anthony captured the moment a fire whirl formed during the Camp Fire near the town of Paradise, northern California. The phenomenon, sometimes called a ‘fire devil’, is created when cool and hot air merge, creating a swirling effect. The inferno covered 111,000 acres
in 2016 the Santa Barbara Sherpa Fire spawned a Fire Tornado you can see in this 27 second video