While we have one of the lowest US fire seasons to date on record so far…
![screenhunter_1655-aug-04-06-59[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/screenhunter_1655-aug-04-06-591.gif)
(Data at right from National Interagency Fire Center plotted by Tony Heller)
…we have this special report based on “…numerous predictions that wildfires—especially in the West—will get larger, more intense, and increasingly hard to contain with climate change,”.
The Interaction of Climate Change, Fire, and Forests in the U.S.
Special Journal Section Provides Regional Assessments
Asheville, NC — A special section of the September issue of Forest Ecology and Management, available online now, assesses the interactions among fire, climate change, and forests for five major regions of the United States.
The editors of the section—Drs. Chelcy Miniat from the U.S. Forest Service, Monique Rocca from Colorado State University, and Robert Mitchell (now deceased) from the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center—started the project by organizing teams of scientists from the Forest Service and universities to provide scientific input into the third National Climate Assessment (NCA), which is prepared at least every four years to assess the effects of climate change on sectors, resources, and regions of the United States.
“The idea for the section came from conversations I had with Bob Mitchell when I was working with the U.S. Global Change Research Program a few years ago,” said Miniat, project leader with the Forest Service Southern Research Station. “We quickly realized that the ability to manage wildfires and to use fire as a tool would be affected by climate change and that this interaction needed more attention in the next round of assessments. We wanted to tailor this information for forest managers.”
Articles in the special section review the interactions between climate and fire in five different regions of the U.S—the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, mid-Atlantic, and Southeast. Each article follows the same general structure, providing a description of the region and its forest types; discussion of projected changes in climate and how they will likely impact fire and forests; and a synthesis of what is known about the effects of fire on forest ecosystem services such as water quantity and quality, air quality, and biodiversity.
“The growing interest in fire and climate has been fueled by numerous predictions that wildfires—especially in the West—will get larger, more intense, and increasingly hard to contain with climate change,” said Rocca. “Understanding the complex relationships among climate, fire, and vegetation is critical to the ability of policymakers and resource managers to respond to climate change. Our goal in these articles is not only to provide the best available science, but also to inform the conversation on how forest management choices can impact the valuable services we derive from our forests.”
Access the articles included in the special issue.
– See more at: http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/news/572#sthash.pJRuAkna.dpuf
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“The growing interest in fire and climate has been fueled by numerous predictions that wildfires—especially in the West—will get larger, more intense, and increasingly hard to contain with climate change,”
And what were the predictions due to other causes, such as Smokey The Bear’s fire suppression policies?
I’ve been wondering for quite some time when the federal government is going to start taxing those states with forest fires for all that CO2 they are emitting. I’m sure any decrease in forest fires will be accounted for improved forest fire fighting technology. there is absolutely no way that any prediction made by a “climate scientist” could be wrong. Their words should all be written in red.
Just to be sure I understand the graph: Is the data for 2014 partial or “projected” ? Is it approprate to combine partial years with full years on a graph? What part of the year exactly are the bulk of the wildfires in the US?
Because of the environmentalists’ constant meddling with well-established practices of regular forest / bush burnoffs, we get more fires that are larger and harder to contain because of an abundance in fuel. Then they turn around and say that we get more fires because of climate change.
can’t type any more; it will become a rant…
Since CO2 results in more plant growth, I would have expected higher CO2 levels to result in more and bigger fires. All other things being equal, which they never are.
In the early 1980s, the frequency of fires in the U.S. dropped dramatically and remained low ever since. At the same time, the number of acres burned has increased dramatically, thereby giving a “hockey stick” appearance. The drop in fires around 1981 may be due to a great increase in both winter and summer precipitation. Precipitation is greatly influenced by the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) cycle. The short-term effect would be to suppress fires, but the longer-term effect would be to increase biomass fuel available for burning when things got drier. A change in forest management under the Endangered Species Act, i.e, lack of forest thinning may be contributory. See more: http://wryheat.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/wildfires-and-warming-relationship-not-so-clear/
FS was given the climate inputs, they did not generate them. Even though the overview and each of the 5 regions is paywalled ($35 each, despite being done by the US Forest service using out tax dollars) the main points are summarized the various abstracts. Read them all Hotter and drier for longer summers would increase western forest fire frequency (duh!), but not northern, eastern, or southeastern frequency. Solution is more prescribed burns to limit fuel load buildup. Pretty benign stuff being fed by the FS to the Warmunist PR machine.
Neil says:
August 5, 2014 at 10:50 am
Because of the environmentalists’ constant meddling with well-established practices of regular forest
______
This is news to me. Many environmentalists favor a policy or regular “controlled” burns–which they often ignite. However, they do seem to oppose the harvesting of trees, dead or alive.
I haven’t bought any of the detailed reports/studies but from what I’ve read here, it looks like the various authors were specifically warned against using the term “warming.” Only “change.” Yet most of the predictions would seem to result from warming being on the authors’ minds. Did any author or investigator include cooling as a possible feature of climate change? Seems not.
And the Pause marches on.
Dr Monica Rocco, CSU:
“The growing interest in fire and climate has been fueled by numerous predictions that wildfires—especially in the West—will get larger, more intense, and increasingly hard to contain with climate change,” said Rocca. “Understanding the complex relationships among climate, fire, and vegetation is critical to the ability of policymakers and resource managers to respond to climate change. ”
Translation: Give me a generous multi-year grant award to provide a Climate Change-confirming study and papers.
natural climate change causes more dryness at higher latitudes
hence
more fire hazard
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
Report on a recent conversation with a forester of the US Forest Service.
The fires are fewer and this is the measure of success of the control of forest fires. Success, however, has its price: the growth of understory timber that normally would have been eliminated as seedlings by the regular processes of nature- forest fires!
So what is wrong with understory timber? It is responsible for the huge, uncontrollable conflagrations that we see. It acts as a “fire ladder” that allows the fire to move to the upper canopy and it is the conflagration of this that makes the uncontrollable fires.
So this is the present situation after decades
of successful fire management. It is a real problem and of course the alarmists will seize upon the problem and shrill global warming and add to the problem, sort of like having to deal with the Southern Pine Beetle you can’t stop it, you just have to live with it.
Right on schedule, John Holdren puts out another laugher on forest fires.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/it-only-takes-three-minutes-to-see-why-we-must-act-climate-change
This time fully sanctioned by the White House it seems.
PhilCP says:
August 5, 2014 at 10:49 am
“Just to be sure I understand the graph: Is the data for 2014 partial or “projected” ? Is it approprate to combine partial years with full years on a graph? ”
Apples to apples. No years are full years; they are all partial years through August 1. The data being compared for every partial year are “US Burn Acreage Though August 1” as the label on the graph indicates.
What is causing all these algae blooms in the news the last few years? All kinds of ideas, including smoke from forest fires, but mainly investigations are possibly wrong or inconclusive. Even blames cold winters killing off the good algae and of course… climate change, agw.
There is no question that increasing CO2 is causing a booming biosphere, increasing plant growth/vegetative health as well as increasing crop yields/world food production significantly.
These effects are occurring globally and for almost all plant species, with woody stemmed plants benefiting the most.
Regards to forecast fires.
1. There is no evidence that increasing CO2 is causing an increase in the “number” of forest fires.
2. However, it seems logical to assume that fuel for forest fires is increasing, so they should be getting larger and more intense.
So, is this a reason to cut back on CO2 emissions?
Good analogy with another fuel, gasoline.
Your car needs plenty of fuel. Increasing the amount of gasoline, allows your car to go farther and farther…………but we put the fuel in the tank of the vehicle and control how, when and where it gets burned so it serves us properly.
Outside of the tank, as used as a fuel it can be very dangerous/burned in a harmful way, so we take extraordinary measures to use it where it serves us.
With CO2, we can use it to produce much more fuel, in the form of growing food for humans. Other animals are also served as they eat plants or another animal that ate plants too.
CO2, causes plants/vegetation to increase. Additional fuel for forest fires to burn. Though it’s not as easy as confining gasoline to a fuel tank, we know what this fuel can do to feed fires when not controlled and can take steps to lessen(not eliminate) the risk from this fuel being burned in a harmful way.
This way, the massive increase in plants from increasing CO2 are used to serve us and the animal world, while taking measures to lessen(as best possible) the downside of this same fuel, when used by forest fires.
Realistically, we should ask this question, in view of the fact that we can’t control many forecast fires.
Is an increase in the world food supply of roughly 15% that effects billions of people more important or is an increase of X% in the size of some forest fires more important?
Also, consider that increased CO2 allows burned forests and other vegetation to recover much faster.
James Strom says:
This is news to me. Many environmentalists favor a policy or regular “controlled” burns–which they often ignite. However, they do seem to oppose the harvesting of trees, dead or alive.
Come to Australia. The rabid Greens there argue tooth-and-nail that fires are bad – never mind that some trees require regular fires to germinate.
And no mention of arson, thought to be a factor in two recent large fires in southern Colorado,
Here are the ten worst wildfires that caused the most damage & loss of life in U.S. history:
1871
Oct. 8–14, Peshtigo, Wis: over 1,500 lives lost and 3.8 million acres burned in nation’s worst forest fire.
1889
June 6, Seattle, Wash.: fire destroyed 64 acres of the city and killed 2 people. Damage was estimated at $15 million.
1894
Sept. 1, Minn.: forest fires ravaged over 160,000 acres and destroyed 6 towns; 600 killed, including 413 in town of Hinckley.
1902
Sept., Wash. and Ore.: Yacoult fire destroyed 1 million acres and left 38 dead.
1910
Aug. 10, Idaho and Mont.: fires burned 3 million acres of woods and killed 85 people.
1918
Oct. 13–15, Minn. and Wis.: forest fire struck towns in both states; 1,000 died, including 400 in town of Cloquet, Minn. About $1 million in losses.
1947
Oct. 25–27, Maine: forest fire destroyed part of Bar Harbor and damaged Acadia National Park. In all, 205,678 acres burned and 16 lives were lost.
1949
Aug. 5, Mann Gulch, Mont.: 12 smokejumpers—firefighters who parachuted near the fire—and 1 forest ranger died after being overtaken by a 200-ft wall of fire at the top of a gulch near Helena, Mont. Three smokejumpers survived.
1956
Nov. 25, Calif.: fire destroyed 40,000 acres in Cleveland National Forest and caused 11 deaths.
1970
Sept. 26, Laguna, Calif.: large-scale brush fire consumed 175,425 acres and 382 structures.
None from the 20-year natural warming period, c. 1977-96, before the “pause” or during it, c. 1997-2013 & counting.
Here are the five worst during the recent warming & “pause”. Arguably some could fit in the top ten, depending upon which factors you consider, & how you adjust cost damages:
1988
Aug.–Sept., western U.S.: fires destroyed over 1.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park and damaged Alaska woodlands.
1990
June, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Painted Cave fire burned 4,900 acres and destroyed 641 structures.
1991
Oct. 20–23, Oakland–Berkeley, Calif.: brush fire in drought-stricken area destroyed over 3,000 homes and apartments. At least 24 people died; damage estimated at $1.5 billion.
1994
July 2–11, South Canyon, Colo.: relatively small fire (2,000 acres) led to deaths of 14 firefighters.
2000
April–May, northern N.M.: prescribed fire started by National Park Service raged out of control, destroying 235 structures and forcing evacuation of more than 20,000 people. Blaze consumed an estimated 47,000 acres and threatened Los Alamos National Laboratory.
@Ed Martin , I am fairly certain that agricultural run off , high nitrogen and phosphorous compounds likely, are feeding the algae blooms.
” Ed Martin says:
August 5, 2014 at 12:11 pm
What is causing all these algae blooms in the news the last few years? All kinds of ideas, including smoke from forest fires, but mainly investigations are possibly wrong or inconclusive. Even blames cold winters killing off the good algae and of course… climate change, agw.”
Of course the typical excuse is ‘agriculture’,but it is more likely to be lawns. There are more acres of lawns and golf courses in most of these areas than there are agricultural acres. Taking the recent Toledo bloom, for example…most of Ohio’s ag is a lot further south and drains to the south, Ohio/Mississippi drainage basin. Most of the lakeshore (going 10-20 miles inland) area drains into the lake and has a very high percentage of ‘lawn’.
I don’t think there are may forst fires in Northern Africa despite the heat.
The only way for there to be more fires is because the area is drying out- there was plenty of precipitatoin in the past to grow all those plants, but there’s less now, thanks to a warming and drying of the climate.
Make the world really cold, as in the last ice age, and you get less evaporation from the 70% of the world covered by oceans, and less precipitation and more desert in the 30& of the world covered by land. Start increasing temperatures, and there’ll be more evaporation from the oceans, and more rainfall- about 30% or so of that rainfall will fall on land. Continue raising temperatures, you’ll continue to get more evaporation from the oceans, and more rainfall on land. There might be a shift in the horse latitudes due to climate change-and drying in those areas , but overall you’d get a wetter world less prone to drought and forest fires with a warmer world
Unfortunately we have nitwits like this congresswoman blathering on.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-suzanne-bonamici/our-oceans-cant-wait-any-_b_5643017.html
She is a remarkable example of a completely duped and delirious politician interested in nothing but her crazed political agendas.
MJC, I’m not sure where you got your info about the lawns versus farrmland in Northwest Ohio, but it is simply not true. The Maumee watershed is an extremely large area and Northwest Ohio is almost entirely all farmland(I should know, we have many acreas of farmland bordering the Maumee River near Defiance, Oh). I wont bother regurgitating wikipedia info like it is my own, but the watershed is a very large area and I encourage you to look. We use filter strips along all waterways that drain into the maumee to lessen the fertilizer and soil run off. I am not claiing to be an expert of why Lake Erie is having its algae problems, but it has come and gone in the past so who know.