[applause] thank you all for joining us at the center for technology and innovation following this and other issues related to our tech policy ecosystem, please follow us podcasts picking up the podcast on this as well and the trillion blogs i mentioned will eventually be out in tracy's book and my book but we thank you and appreciate you and let's keep talking about this. thank you stop. >> the u.s. senate dabbles in this afternoon 3:00 p.m. eastern lawmakers are expected to consider elizabeth allen to be under secretary of state for public diplomacy vote to limit debate on nomination expected held at 5:30 p.m. eastern today.

you can watch live coverage of the senate proceedings here on c-span2 and c-span.org and now our c-span video app. watch video on-demand any time online at c-span.org and try our points of interest feature using markers to quickly guide you to newsworthy and interesting highlights of key coverage use point of interest anytime online at c-span.org. >> we are back with washington journal and climate change scientist university of california berkeley professor patrick gonzales joined us now to discuss how nsclimate change is impacting wildfires book ãã good morning professor gonzales. >> good morning. >> i have an article pulled out by the guardian i'm going to read the first couple paragraphs it says canada's ongoing wildfire season is a harbinger of our climate future

experts and officials say. the fires are a clear sign of climate change that ããi researcher at mcgill university in montrcal was also postdoctoral associate at the massachusetts institute of technology. it says research shows that climate change has already exacerbated wildfires dramatically. my question is, do you agree with that? >> absolutely. published scientific research shows that humans cause climate change is exacerbating wildfire wildfire is caused by a complex mix of factors so let me briefly set the stage and describe the context. a certain amount of wildfire is natural in many forests, it kills ãand ensures forests

health. in california where i am in the southwestern u.s. fire naturally occurs every 10 to 20 years in canada fire naturally occurs only every 100 or 300 years. and in the amazon rain forest wildfires never occur at all. in the western us old outdated policies of suppressing all fires even natural ones have caused unnatural accumulations of fuel and in canada roads and super harvesting roads and towns have caused unnatural increases in ignitions at the same time climate change is intensifying the heat that drives wildfires. specific scientific analyses called detection attribution have looked at all the different factors that go into

wildfires and these analyses have concluded that humans cause climate change has lengthened fire season around the world up to two months in the western united states human caused climate change has doubled the area burned by wildfire above natural levels since 1984 and in british columbia canada and the extreme prior-year of 2017 human caused climate change increased burned area 7c11 times over natural levels. in summary, a combination of local factors and human caused climate change have increased the areas burned by wildfires. >> and bringing up some data from the national interagency fire center it shows the number of fires and acres burned can vary greatly from year to year.

what other factors are causing that fluctuation? you talked about the human timpact but why we see so much fluctuation from year to year recently? >> both temperature rainfall and snowfall vary year to year and bounce up and down naturally. human caused climate change is causing a long-term increase in the temperature. so in some years the rainfall is very high. the landscape is moist. in other years, the rainfall dropped the snowfall dropped and its dryer and that's superimposed on this long-term increase in heat and in those years this year in canada that wildfire explodes.

>> we want you to call in with either questions or professor gonzales or any thoughts about wildfires and climate change. those e numbers if you're in th eastern or central time zone we want you to call us at 202-748-8000 if you are in the mountain or pacific aitime zone call us at 202748 8000 one. eastern and central before we get to the calls, want to ask you professor gonzales, you are in california which you said has experienced wildfires increasing over the past years. recently when the wildfires in

canada and back to the northeast corridor new york washington dc, it seemed like public interest increased greatly. did you notice that it has that caused onfrustration with those in california who said we been talking about this for years and you guys weren't paying attention until it affected you more directly. >> it's good when the public takes note wherever the public is the hazards of climate change and how it's exacerbating wildfire and other impacts around the world. the recent episodes in the eastern u.s. just paed the awareness the impacts of climate change. >> we are talking with the university of california berkeley professor patrick gonzales ready for questions and comments first up is and in viral oklahoma.

i think we lost and. okay. we will wait and get back to the phone lines. i want to ask you, you mention the floodwaters and snow this is from the california department of water resources, it says that there is an annual survey recorded 126.5 inches of snow ããjust 221% average for this location. that was in early april. the quote says, this year's severe storms and flooding is the latest example that california's climate is becoming more extreme than the department of water resources, numbers. after the driest three years on record and the devastating drought impacts to communities across the state department of water resources has rapidly shifted to flood response and

forecasting for the upcoming snowmelt. we been talking about climate change some people will say, you are saying wildfires were an issue now we are talking about wildfires and routes now we are talking about flooding how can both be in impact of climate change. >> public scientific research shows human caused climate change is increasing the amount of energy in the atmosphere. this energy is redistributed in unusual ways such that the temperature extremes and rainfall aextremes have been occurring. so the drought that california experience the severe drought from 2012 to 2016 is actually part of a larger more widespread drought across the southwestern u.s. that's been

the most severe since the 1500s. then climate change in this redistribution of atmospheric energy sometimes brings extreme storms extreme rainfalls and that's what occurred this year with the atmospheric rivers the snow is actually good news in terms of wildfire the landscape is going to be moist this year but as i said previously, climate change is causing these extremes sometimes rainfall goes up sometimes it goes down and it's all superimposed on this long-term heating. >> let's go to the phone lines down, robert is in susanville california go ahead with liyour question or comment robert. >> thank you. out here in california i worked for the forest service and part of the problem is how their

policy is on fighting fires now and when i used to work for them 35 to 40 years ago they actually try to o put fires out i understand that the underbrush growth and that kind of thing does need to be taken care of but the problem is now with the huge fires that burn for months at a time that's the problem, they don't try to put them out, they try to control the burn. eventually we get a windy day, it blows it over there fire lines and we lose towns like paradise, my uncle was burned out of paradise. the town of greenville just three years ago for the dixie fire. that was a controlled burn that got out of control because they decided to leave. i understand climate has a lot

to do with it. service population. where fire is used to burn before and really remote areas, now they are not so. i used to work with them i've watched them, used to run supplies to them. i watch the e firefighters you sitting around waiting and watching firebird. one time i even asked one of them do you have a shovel i will go out there and throw some dirt on this little fire. >> alright let's let professor gonzales respond to that. >> the depth and damage from wildfires are very sad omand regrettable. published scientific research shows that the most effective means to prevent those depths and damage in the future is to restore their natural fire regimes that have been

unnaturally surprised over a century of outdated policy so the federal agencies have a national wildfire plan have operational plans for fire if fires are naturally ignited and remote than the fire crews monitor the fire burned it's important to have this long-term view on climate change to reduce the fire risk

by the natural reintroduction of natural fire. >> caller is jasmine in washington dc, you are on. >> thank you for taking my call. thank you professor gonzales for your work and research. i'm curious what's on your radar when it comes to other types of research or innovations that are working toward preventing climate disasters. if there is any work to use other disasters to support certain ããi was in the midsouth and there was torrential rain and thunderstorms and i wondered, i wish this was water you could use to put fires out. i'm curious if there's anything in that space. thank you. >> climate change. the fundamental way to prevent

future disastrous wildfire catastrophic wildfires is to cut the carbon pollution from cars, power plants and human sources that causes climate change so the floods you mentioned. >> we are going to leave washington journal but you can continue washing if you go to work website spend one. senate lawmakers are about to gamble in on this monday, considering anomaly elizabeth allen to be under secretary of state for public diplomacy. vote to limit debate set for 5:30 p.m. eastern today. live now to the senate floor here on c-span2. >> the senate will come to order. ......