By Paul Homewood

 

 

 

Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a huge jump in the number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests.

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018.

It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the agency amid rows over its deforestation data.

The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.

It is also home to about three million species of plants and animals, and one million indigenous people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49415973

 

You cannot have forgotten about the hysteria surrounding the wildfires in Brazil last month, alternately blamed on President Bolsonaro or global warming, depending on your preference.

As saner observers pointed out at the time, nothing unusual was happening, and most of the fires were actually clearing existing farmland of scrub, a process that happens every year, and not in the forest itself.

So, what has been happening in the last month?

http://www.globalfiredata.org/forecast.html#totals

 

As of today, the cumulative fire count is pretty much average, as per the green line:

 

The GFED also estimates emissions, as a proxy for fire volume. Again, we see that this year has so far been unremarkable:

 

 

This was not the only way you were misled at the time. The Guardian, for instance, included this map in their coverage:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/23/amazon-fires-what-is-happening-anything-we-can-do

 

One of my contacts took a close look at this map, and identified several issues:

 

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

https://ift.tt/2mHyAnq

September 25, 2019 at 08:30AM