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MSM Washington State News Fakery

[last update: 2019/08/07]

Mainstream Media Promote Fake News About Washington Climate / Fires

The AP provided the MSM with this scary story about Issaquah, Washington:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/u-s-northwest-towns-woefully-unprepared-as-fire-risk-grows/

MSM: Yes, “an unlikely candidate for anxiety over wildfires” – so let’s create some anxiety.

https://komonews.com/news/local/global-warming-brings-wildfire-risk-to-rainy-us-northwest

(The articles are all identical since it is from AP)

The article states: “But according to experts, previously too-wet-to-burn parts of the Pacific Northwest face an increasing risk of significant wildfires due to changes in its climate driven by the same phenomenon: Global warming is bringing higher temperatures, lower humidity and longer stretches of drought.”

So let’s check on the “experts”

The Data

Issaquah is in King County (as is Seattle), Washington State’s most populous county.

The following graphs show the complete record (1895 – 2018) of summer maximum temperature and precipitation for King County as plotted at the NOAA web site. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag

The blue line on each graph is the trend line for the complete set of data.

Above: summer maximum temperature – long-term trend = 0.0 (i.e. zero long-term temperature change)

The last four years have been above normal, but the warmest summer and the hottest decade was in the 1950s.

Above: summer precipitation – long-term trend = 0.06” per decade increase (i.e. close to zero long-term precipitation change)

The last four years have had reduced summer precipitation, but the driest cluster of years was in the 1920s-1930s.

The following graph shows the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the driest month (July) for the Puget Sound climate division (since PDSI is not available at the county level or for multiple months).

Above: PDSI long-term trend = 0.08 per decade – meaning decreasing drought (i.e. close to zero long-term PDSI change)

The last four years have had drought, but the longest / worst droughts were in the 1920s and 1940s.

The AP article states: “But experts broadly agreed: Global warming is changing the wet climate of the Pacific Northwest, in ways that will make its forests more likely to burn.”

As usual, the actual data shows how the mainstream media simply tell lies to promote their scare. Their “experts” are easily proven wrong.

Cliff Mass Calls Out the Mainstream Media and Government for Promoting Fake News

Seattle Times had an article in May promoting Jay Inslee’s drought nonsense, but Cliff Mass debunked the fake news here:

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/05/does-washington-state-really-have.html

Cliff presents the data and concludes: “The bottom line: the situation is far less dire or unusual than advertised. There will be plenty of water for nearly all users, and that the forecast is for a wetter than normal summer.” And: “My take on all this, is that our state is going into the summer in relatively good shape water-wise and that there is no reason to expect drier than normal conditions and excessive wildfires. Summers are typically dry here and there will be fires, but it is important not to exaggerate or hype the situation.”

He followed it up with another data-filled article debunking the political nonsense.

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/05/more-on-washington-drought-situation.html

“In short, we have had a winter with modestly below normal precipitation and an April 1 snowpack of about 75% of normal over the State. Not unexpected in an El Nino year. Our reservoir and dam systems are sufficient to provide normal water availability for nearly every user in such a circumstance-- in fact, it would be scandalous if they couldn't. If we couldn't easily handle such a year, folks would need to question our Governor and State legislators about why they weren't ensuring a robust water system.”

The scary AP article at the top of this post also states: “And fire counts are up: As of late June, western Oregon forests have seen double the average number of fire starts from the previous decade — 48 compared with 20. Western Washington saw an even larger increase, with 194 starts compared with an average of 74.”

But Cliff already debunked this nonsense too. His posting on June 28 (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-quieter-than-average-wildfire-year-so.html) says: “With all the talk this spring of a severe and early wildfire season in the Northwest, the opposite appears to be occurring. Currently, there are no major fires in Washington or British Columbia, with one small fire (140 acres) in Oregon.”

And: “Looking more broadly, the Year to Date fire statistics for the entire U.S. (from the U.S. Interagency Fire Center) shows that there have been less fires and less acreage burned this year than any time in at least 10 years (see below). But for the Northwest, it is even better than that, since most of the fires so far have been Alaska.” And he provides the table below:

For more on Puget Sound climate: http://appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PugetSound.htm, which shows the Puget Sound climate is governed by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) – not CO2 (and certainly not by Jay Inslee, who wants to control everything).