By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | September 27, 2020
According to the Met Office, global warming is leading to record breaking fires in North America.
Canada, of course, is a large part of North America, so surely fires should be getting worse there too.
In fact wildfires this year are running at just 8% of the 10-year average:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report
All provinces are well below average:
This suggests that meteorological conditions have been responsible for both the glut of fires in the US west and the dearth in Canada.
More significant though is the long term trend in Canada:
http://nfdp.ccfm.org/en/data/fires.php
1994, 1995 and 1998 recorded the biggest wildfire acreages. But over the full period, there is no obvious trend at all.
Which all rather makes of a nonsense of the Met Office’s claim that hot dry weather conditions promoting wildfires are becoming more severe and widespread due to climate change.