It's not fake per se. It's being misrepresented. It's a composite timelapse of heat being misrepresented as a composite timelapse of fire. There are many other sources of heat and the map is being shown without scaling so there's no indication of temperature. NASA's kit is quite sensitive even at that range, so it can detect differences in heat caused by something as minor as a slightly shiny roof on a large building reflecting more sunlight than the ground around it. The map is useful for what it is, but unfortunately it's also useful for disseminating disinformation.
Australian bushfires
- Thread starter Sankari
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It's not fake per se. It's being misrepresented. It's a composite timelapse of heat being misrepresented as a composite timelapse of fire. There are many other sources of heat and the map is being shown without scaling so there's no indication of temperature. NASA's kit is quite sensitive even at that range, so it can detect differences in heat caused by something as minor as a slightly shiny roof on a large building reflecting more sunlight than the ground around it. The map is useful for what it is, but unfortunately it's also useful for disseminating disinformation.
So not only fires, It also shows where the towns/cities are and even, possibly, who is just having a big barbie!
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After some reading, it turns out that its an artists impression based on NASA data. Its been done by a guy called Anthony Hearsey.
'This is a 3D visualisation of the fires in Australia. NOT A PHOTO. Think of this a graph. This is made from data from NASA’s FIRMS (Satellite data regarding fires) between 05/12/19 - 05/01/20. These are all the areas which have been affected by bushfires. Additionally, similar information can be viewed on the Australian Website MyFireWatch
Scale is a little exaggerated due to the render’s glow, but generally true to the info from the NASA website. Also note that NOT all the areas are still burning, and this is a compilation.'
I thought it was a bit suss as we have no bushfires in the NT so far this year and very little of anything in December either
Yes. It's not a fire map timelapse and it's disinformation to present it as such. The real situation is bad enough, but OMG LOOK AT THIS HORROR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE (CLIMATE CHANGE VIRTUE SIGNALLING)! attracts more views and more anger and thus more status and power can be gained. Propaganda is commonplace in peacetime as well as wartime because it works.
The whole issue is also less simple than propaganda makes it out to be. Many parts of Australia have always been prone to fires and of course the fires have affected humans more since human population density has become far higher(*) and human infrastructure has become larger and more complex and more fragile. There have been a couple of even larger fires in Australia within well recorded history, with 1974 being much worse than this year in terms of the total area burnt. There's an argument that fire prevention has been badly underfunded in Australia in recent years and it seemed like a sound argument to me (though of course I can be fooled by propaganda and I have not properly researched the issue). But there are some differences over the last few years which fit with climate change. Some firefighters (and some of the people who organise firefighting) are reporting those differences and some scientists predicted those differences. Is it all confirmation bias? I doubt it. Many of these people are experienced at the sharp end and know what they're dealing with and what has changed and to what extent. A person who's 5000 miles away reading whatever increasingly biased selection of stories are fed to them by their confirmation bias company of choice (usually Google and/or Facebook) is easily fooled. A person who's been firefighting in the same area for 30 years and is going on their own observations and knowledge is rather less easily fooled.
* Australia's overall population density doesn't seem high, but it has areas of dense population and even the average is a lot higher than it was even a couple of hundred years ago let alone a couple of thousand years ago.
One of the things that is commented on in this story is the deposition of soot on NZ (And presumably, eventually, further afield in South America)
Now, It occurred to me. How many of these areas of fallout have ancient ice sheets going back thousands of years??
If so, is there any ice core data showing whether or not fires on this scale have happened in the past?
Now, It occurred to me. How many of these areas of fallout have ancient ice sheets going back thousands of years??
If so, is there any ice core data showing whether or not fires on this scale have happened in the past?
What purpose would that serve to the people currently suffering the effects of it, today? Don't wish to be dismissive, more knowledge is always better than less knowledge.
Fires of "this scale" are nothing compared to the geological past when most of earth was nice burnable biomass.
Yes and yes. And worse. And also much more material deposited from major volcanic activity. Some of them are so extreme that they're easily visible to the naked eye, which is a hell of of thing when they've been compressed by a vast weight of ice above them for many millenia.
And even worse during the late paleozoic, when oxygen levels were much higher and most of the Earth was burnable biomass. And giant bugs. Many, many giant bugs. Flying bugs with wingspans bigger than most birds.
Another thing I have always wondered regarding this period.
The percentage of various gasses in the atmosphere changes over time.
Charts showing what these changes are reckoned to be seem easy to find.
However, It wasnt just the composition of the atmosphere that will have changed over time, The earths overall atmospheric pressure will have changed too. Possibly by really quite large amounts. I have not ever been able to find charts showing these changes over time. If anybody knows where these could be found I would be interested.
(There are for instance, Many "Atmospheres" worth of CO2 locked up in carbonate rocks around the globe. And that is just one type of mineral that will be composed of materials drawn from the early atmosphere. When life first got going on earth it was a very different place indeed!)
****!
That must have been bloody terrifying. Amazed at how everybody seems so calm
I am guessing that he set up sprinklers/spray bars around the site fed from that pump that was mentioinad and could be heard running.
But damn that was close!
I am amazed at how unscathed the house was. Did he actually build it to be fire resistant? (EG tin roof, insulated and with plasterboard or something similar cladding the outside of the house?)
Mind, I was half expecting him to say
"Just go out and turn the steaks over and grab a couple of tinnys from the cooler"
Right in the middle of all that!
Yep, he had made his preparations and they were sound.
As far as I know it was just a regular house with an added sprinkler system for fire protection. It proves you can successfully defend your property if you're well prepared and know what you're doing. But as you can see, everything outside was completely destroyed. The fire is literally unstoppable; if you've chosen to stay, all you can do is ride it out and hope your defences are strong enough.
A single broken window could have been enough to doom the entire building.
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Only 24...? Is arson the national pastime of Australia or something?
24 incidents over 4 months during bushfire season is pretty good, believe it or not.
(Source).
Many of those will be small scale stuff, quickly extinguished. Only a few will be directly linked to the big fires.
The worst part is that some arsonists are firefighters themselves.
'How a Volunteer Firefighter Became a Serial Arsonist.'
(Source).
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