A look back across 500 years’ worth of wildfire history shows fire season intensity across Western North America increases in direct proportion to, of all things, surface temperatures of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Given that the Atlantic warms and cools in 60-year cycles and the ocean is entering its next warm phase, researchers predict a decades-long increase in widespread fires across the Western United States in the coming years.
And global warming only will exacerbate that trend, the scientists say.
Kitzberger and colleagues reconstructed past cycles from tree-ring growth in forests in Finland, Italy, France, Jordan, Turkey, the United States and elsewhere.
They then dated almost 34,000 fire scars in trees from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental, finding wildfire most widespread in years when the Atlantic was warmest.
The Atlantic is already warmer as a result of global warming, with more of that warming on the way, too — purchased, so to speak, but not yet delivered due to the lag between industrial emissions and climate change.
So a key question facing those watching the West is how bad will fire conditions get in the coming decades.
Fortunately, starting to answer questions, establishing priorities — isn’t as difficult as getting past the know-nothings who would rather ignore uncomfortable questions altogether.
The biggest problem today in the forests is not fire, but it has been a lack of fire. First we stopped intentionally setting fires in forests, as the American Indians did, and then we started suppressing fires. The effect today is clear–we have too much wood that results in fires that are overly-intense. Global warming might matter some, but it is not the root cause of intense fires in western forests today–the lack of small fires set by humans, and 100 years of fire suppression.
Before we start worrying about global warming impact on forests, we ought to return forest to the conditions they have seen ever since the glaciers retreated 10,000 years ago. Native Americans intensely managed forests and if we want to return to more “natural” conditions, we should as well.
Two Global Warming (TM) posts in one day! Better get out the wieners, marshmallows and a long stick.
yep – if you dont burn a forest every once in a while (20 to 40 yrs on the average) then you are creating problems for yourself (that and eco/enviro freaks living in the woods)
Methinks Eideard is baiting a flame war on this one…
As Daniel said in post #1, it is man’s suppression of fires that caused a huge build-up of fuel in our forrests. You need look no further for the cause of the severe Western fires.
There are so many holes in the arguments presented by these “scientists” that I wonder how they survived the peer review process. Oh, wait a minute, they’re climatologists — they need only add to the global warming propaganda to pass review.
Anyone who thinks it is natural for anything to destroy itself every 40 years is crazy. Fire is the enemy of forests. Always has been and always will be.
I would also like to know where the evidence is that Native Americans intentionally burned down forests. Or that they “intensely managed” Currently we have millions of acres of forests that are several hundreds of years old showing no sign of ever being burned.
All that “debris”? It’s used by wildlife as habitat. It breaks down into compost and the nutrients are returned to the earth. Just as nature has done for hundreds of millions of years. And under certain conditions, all that “debris” becomes carbonized and turns to coal.
#6 – Worst post ever. The death and rebirth of the planet is a natural process, to deny it is foolish.
#7, Forest fires ARE a natural componet of the ecosystem, when not caused by human activity. Total suppression of any and all fires, is not natural.
Just as a deer being eaten by a wolf is natural. Unless you are the deer. Yes, fires happen. They are NOT a desirable thing anymore then is cancer. Yet even cancer can have a bright side, it opens an employment opportunity for a younger less experienced person. No one can honestly suggest that a forest fire or cancer is a good thing. But they both happen.
Just because a forest can heal after a fire doesn’t mean that there isn’t some long term damage. Much of the ecosystem will be destroyed and will take years to recover. The displaced species move into areas stressing same and other species, depleting food supplies far from the fire. Replacement flora is usually less supportive of the native fauna. Watershed pollution kills aquatic life for miles from the fire and even in future years, the excessive soil run off will continue to have a negative effect.
#8, Still an uninformed armpit. If you kill the planet, there won’t be anything to regrow, idiot.