Climate change is likely fueling the larger and more destructive wildfires that are scorching vast areas of the American West, according to new research led by Michigan State University scientists.
These erratic fires are harder to contain and often result in catastrophic damage and loss of property and life. Although not analyzed in the study, the recent Arizona wildfire that began with a lightning strike and killed 19 firefighters appeared to be such an unpredictable, fast-spreading blaze, according to a state report.
The MSU-led study, which appears in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, predicts the trend will continue in the western United States.
“Our findings suggest that future lower atmospheric conditions may favor larger and more extreme wildfires, posing an additional challenge to fire and forest management,” said Lifeng Luo, MSU assistant professor of geography and lead author on the study.
The researchers analyzed current and future climate patterns projected by multiple regional climate models and their effect on the spread of fire in a mountainous region that includes Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The study focused on August, the most active month for wildfires in the western United States.
August 2012 saw 3.6 million acres burn in the region, the most of any August since 2000. However, there were only 6,948 fires in August 2012 – the second fewest in that 12-year timeframe – meaning the fires were much larger.
Large wildfires are mainly driven by natural factors including the availability of fuel (vegetation), precipitation, wind and the location of lightning strikes. In particular, the researchers found that exceptionally dry and unstable conditions in the earth’s lower atmosphere will continue contributing to “erratic and extreme fire behavior.”
“Global climate change may have a significant impact on these factors, thus affecting potential wildfire activity across many parts of the world,” the study says.
Co-authors include Ying Tang and Shiyuan Zhong from MSU, and Xindu Bian and Warren Heilman from the USDA Forest Service.
– See more at: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/extreme-wildfires-likely-fueled-by-climate-change/#sthash.u0hR62YK.dpuf
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I’m late thanks to having to deal with some BS this AM, but I’ll add comments that have factual information to
dispute this. – Anthony
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Hard to contain fires are due to forest fire management which has suppressed healthy brush-clearing forest fires for so long that, now, when a fire gets going it is so hot it is difficult to put out and it burns the canopy as well, which normal fires do not. It is open season on Smokey Bear, he screwed up big time.
Forest fire frequency is universally well correlated with natural droughts and in the western USA that correlates with La NInas and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. When the -PDO and La NIna coincide fire frequency gets worse. Schoenannagel wrrote “the combined cool phases (negative PDO during La Nifia) appeared to promote large fires in the southern Rockies. Almost 70% of large fires in RMNP burned during La Nifia events that coincided with a negative PDO, although these phases co-occurred during only 29% of the 1700-1975 period.”
Schoennagel, T., (2005) ENSO and PDO Variability Affect Drought induced Fire Occurrence in Rocky Mountain Subalpine Forests. Ecological Applications, vol. 15, pp. 2000-2014.
Fire intensity is universally associated with increased fuel loads due to fire suppression as people have moved into fire prone regions.
CO2 advocates like Hansen argue Co2 global warming will increases summer droughts. However all studies suggest just the exact opposite. Studies linking natural climate change and fires reveal we are now in a golden era of reduced fires and more fires occurred during the LIttle Ice Age. For example Higuera, P. (2010) in Linking tree-ring and sediment-charcoal records to reconstruct fire occurrence and area burned in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park, USA.” found the greatest fire frequency occurred in the 1600s and 1700s. Today’s fire frequency is relatively non-existent.
Similarly in “An ice-core based history of Siberian forest fires since AD 1250” (2011) by
Dr. Anja Eichler they report “period of exceptionally high forest-fire activity was observed between AD 1600 and 1680, following an extremely dry period AD 1540e1600.”
I noticed over Joe Romm is pushing this fire angle with “A Nation On Fire: Climate Change And The Burning Of America”. It appears when the average temperature pauses they need to push more unsupported catastrophes.
Last year’s devastating Colorado fire centered around Wade Canyon happened when a -PDo and La NIna coincided as researchers like Schoennagel (above) report. To further show the lack of correlation with global warming, we can look at the maximum temperature trends at USHCN weather stations just north and south of that major fire. In both cases maximum temperatures are lower than the 1930s and 40s. At Canon City
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?id=051294&_PROGRAM=prog.gplot_meanclim_mon_yr2012.sas&_SERVICE=default¶m=TMAXRAW&minyear=1888&maxyear=2012
and at Cheesman
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?id=051528&_PROGRAM=prog.gplot_meanclim_mon_yr2012.sas&_SERVICE=default¶m=TMAX&minyear=1893&maxyear=2012
And all that heat from those fires, where does it go..
The atmosphere gets rid of it, like it ALWAYS does with excessive heat.
We don’t need to totally clean house at MSU (especially the part of the house that supports my daughter and grandson 🙂 ). However, someone at that august institution of higher learning should be able to distinguish between forest management practices, cyclic weather patterns and long-term climate change. Seems they have a real problem with that.
Forests have been burning for a long time. It’s what they do. It’s natural and usually beneficial, We keeping trying to stop them from burning as we must know better. To not like forest fires is like trying to tell Nature she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
milodonharlani says:
August 1, 2013 at 9:04 am
I don’t feel like reading the paper, yet can’t help wondering what factors supposedly caused by “climate change” could account for alleged “extreme” fires.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is easy. The factors are the environuts who have completely changed how the USA manages her forests. These are the same people as the “climate change” econuts.
Yeah, it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Clinton put a halt to all real forest management in ’93.
Oh crap! Bad blockquote. Sorry.
well…
There seems to be a rabid dispensation of crap to get the masses all riled up and the climate catastrophic destruction crap going again.. Mann is telling us fact dont matter, Stanford is telling us some really strange unsupportable crap and now Michigan State doing the same..
Can anyone say Obama Orchestrated climate catastrophe barrage..
So many stooping to such a low so quickly, one right after another..
The Stupid…. IT BURNS…
As a forester for more than 30 years, and with some wildland fire experience, permit me to give a few thoughts on this:
* Fires and acres burned to date in 2013, despite a recent lightning bust in Oregon, is WELL BELOW the 10 year average. https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf In this version, scroll down to page 8.
* Those commenting on the “success” of national forest fire efforts as part of the problem – there is some truth here. However, there were HUGE forest fires in the era before coordinated efforts at wildland fire control. Peshtigo, Cloquet, 1910 (The Big Burn) in WA, ID, and MT, e.g.
* Bigger issues are the failure of those agencies controlling massive areas of the US West, the USDA Forest Service, to manage the lands under their jurisdiction. In large parts of the West, this has resulted in large areas of over-mature and decadent forest, ripe for bark beetle attack.
* There has been a number of years of drought in the West, but certainly nothing that hasn’t been experienced before. However, add the mis-management of forest lands, fuels build up, and over-mature forests, and occasionally we will get large, stand replacing fires.
* Finally, reference was made to the recent tragic deaths of 19 firefighters in Arizona. At the risk of being misunderstood, when such burnovers occur, one or more people involved with the incident SCREWED UP BIG TIME. Wildland firefighters are trained to avoid situations that shout “Watch Out!.” Any time a fire fighter is forced to deploy his fire shelter, one or more mistakes were made, mistakes that they are trained not to make. Clearly, their “safe zone” wasn’t safe enough, because it was not survivable. That they had to retreat to their safe zone means they, and this includes the overhead who should have been monitoring the weather and how it was changing, weren’t paying close enough attention to the fire weather. Finally, it is arguable that this crew was protecting resources of little value, so perhaps a change in strategy would have saved their lives. Building line one or more ridges away, putting more space between themselves and the fire, could have resulted in a different outcome. Ultimately there will be an investigation and report, which I strongly suspect will be along the lines summarized above.
*
You’d think that being from the same part of the country, University of Michigan would be aware of one of the worst wild fire disasters in U.S. history in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Seems to me this was long before global warming was a worry, and modern fires seldom even approach this level of destruction.
source : http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/10-of-the-worst-wildfires-in-us-history
The worst natural disaster in Minnesota history, the Cloquet Fire of 1918, claimed nearly 500 lives in a single day. The fire began after sparks from local railroad tracks ignited dry brush. When the flamed abated, as many as 38 communities had been razed to the ground, 250,000 acres had been scorched, 52,000 persons had been injured or displaced and the costs mounted to nearly $75 million.
Also the Great Michigan Fire in 1871 which burned 2.5 million acres.
Good list of major wild fires here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires
These recent fires are nothing new or unusual, as large wild fires are well represented in the historical record, prior to modern times when global warming is assumed to be the key factor in their occurrence.
Can anyone in climate science do a study that would get a passing grade from my 6th grade science teacher in the early 1960’s?
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
August 1, 2013 at 7:17 pm
“…The worst natural disaster in Minnesota history, the Cloquet Fire of 1918, claimed nearly 500 lives in a single day. The fire began after sparks from local railroad tracks ignited dry brush. When the flamed abated, as many as 38 communities had been razed to the ground, 250,000 acres had been scorched, 52,000 persons had been injured or displaced and the costs mounted to nearly $75 million….”
I lived in Cloquet from 1986-96, so the history of the Cloquet Fire of 1918 was a big deal. The fire started in mid-October, during (not global warming induced) a dry, warm Indian Summer. The house we owned must have been started when the ashes were still warm. Understand that this is MN, and winter frequently comes early. Add to this was an influenza outbreak that ultimately resulted in the death of millions across the globe. Essentially everyone in Cloquet, overnight, was homeless at the onset of winter. Those who could, moved in with friends or relatives. The Red Cross came in with emergency housing, solid structures a few of which survive to this day (my family lived in one for 7 months while we were building a house).
In 1918, there were two sawmills in town, one on the east end, the other on the west. These mills were competitors, and by far the major employers in town. Facing a rapidly approaching winter and a devastating future for their employees, these two mills decided to cooperate in order to keep the men working. One mill had lost their dry kiln in the fire, the other had lost their planer. The two mills worked out a mutaully beneficial arrangement where one would dry the other’s lumber, in exchange for planing services. And, Cloquet survived and rebuilt.
Couldn’t have anything to do with the strategic policy to allow fires to burn could it…
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-07-fire-management_x.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=as-western-us-smolders-forest-service-suspends-let-it-burn-policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/forest-service-fire-policy_n_2838416.html
Forest Policy Up in Smoke: Fire Suppression in the United States
Alison Berry∗
Property and Environment Research Center
http://perc.org/sites/default/files/Forest%20Policy%20Up%20in%20Smoke.pdf
This comes under the heading: Why should MU get all the federal grant money for global climate warming change.
If more CO2 causes more fires, and fires create more CO2, then the run-away global warming death spiral has begun. We’re all doomed! But wait. If this positive feedback was real, wouldn’t it mean that global temperatures should have been accelerating over the last 15 years? Never mind.
Have these people ever studied the effects of lightning strike wildfires that existed in the Americas before the institution of firefighters.
Yada yada, global warming, global climate disruption, climate change, weather.. Quick, gimme more funding while Knobama’s yakking about it and before more people find out it’s a con.
Much of Michigan’s forest as well as the Great Lakes Region and Canadian Tundra has evolved in concert with frequent natural fires due natural cycles of drought. The Jack Pine specifically only open its cones and drops its seeds only after a fire has cleared the land. The Kirtland’s warbler co-evolved with the Jack Pine and due to fire suppression and logging was listed as endangered in 1973.