Tag Archives: climate change

How climate change may affect wildfires

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Changes in area burned w-1 degree C increase in global temp

From National Academy of Sciences. Map of changes in area burned for a 1ºC increase in global average temperature, shown as the percentage change relative to the median annual area burned during 1950-2003. Results are aggregated to ecoprovinces (Bailey, 1995) of the West. Changes in temperature and precipitation were aggregated to the ecoprovince level. Climate-fire models were derived from NCDC climate division records and observed area burned data following methods described in Littell et al. (2009). Source: Figure from Rob Norheim.

Most of us have heard the predictions that climate change and higher temperatures will increase the number of acres burned in wildfires. But I experienced a Holy Crap moment when I saw the map above that illustrates where those changes will occur and by how much. According to a National Academy of Sciences paper titled Climate stabilization targets: emissions, concentrations, and impacts over decades to millennia, a 1°C increase in global average temperature will cause the annual area burned in the western United States to rise from 74 percent to 656 percent relative to the median annual area burned during 1950-2003.

Climate change is happening now, as we told you on January 8, 2013 (and in other articles tagged “climate change”):

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is reporting that last year was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, shattering CRUSHING by a wide margin the previous record set in 1998. The average temperature of 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit was 1 degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees higher than the average for the 20th century. That is a huge difference.

Average size of wildfires by decadeWhat is wrong with this picture: fires are getting larger, and budgets for fire suppression are decreasing. If the predictions are correct, the number of acres burned will continue to increase even more. The people that beg for our votes and then get sent to congress need to not just write strongly-worded letters about the shortage of fire suppression resources, they need to realize that they hold the purse strings and it is their job to actually take action by approving budgets and passing legislation, instead of what happened in December. Letters are meaningless, meant to be a smoke screen to obscure the reality that little is being accomplished.

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Below is a brief version of the paper referenced above:

Climate Stabilization Targets, Report in Brief

 

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Record heat in northern and southern hemisphere

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If you are one of the 18 remaining climate change deniers, you should stop reading now, because what follows will make you uncomfortable.

Northern Hemisphere:

Average temperatures, United StatesThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is reporting that last year was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, shattering CRUSHING by a wide margin the previous record set in 1998. The average temperature of 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit was 1 degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees higher than the average for the 20th century. That is a huge difference.

From the Washington Post:

Last year’s record temperature is “clearly symptomatic of a changing climate,” said Thomas R. Karl, who directs NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Americans can now see the sustained warmth over the course of their own lifetimes — “something we haven’t seen before.” He added, “That doesn’t mean every season and every year is going to be breaking all-time records, but you’re going to see this with increasing frequency.”

Southern Hemisphere:

Extremely high record-breaking temperatures and “catastrophic” fire danger ratings in Australia are not only contributing to the rapid spread of numerous bush fires, but they may cause some electronic gadgets to stop working. According to Wired, Apple advises that an iPhone should not be used when temperatures reach 95F (35C). In Sydney yesterday the high was 108F (42C).

The extreme weather is also causing problems for meteorologists when they attempt to display the highest ever recorded temperatures on their standard maps.

From Wired:

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology had to add new colors to its weather map. Now, those unfortunate parts of Australia that achieve temperatures above 122ºF (50ºC) — temperatures that were, until recently, literally off the scale — will be marked in deep purple and terrifying hot pink. It is an interesting moment in data visualization history when climate scientists find themselves in the position of revising the upper bounds of temperatures they ever expected to depict.

It is possible that our electronics and our infrastructure were designed for a climate that we no longer have. When the streets and buildings of lower Manhattan were built, no one expected that they would be flooded by a hurricane. Apple did not design the iPhone for the recent weather in Australia.

 

Thanks go out to Clyde, Kelly, and Dick

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Carbon emissions from fires doubles

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Fire, Cascade, South Dakota

Lightning strikes near the Stage Hill Fire, Cascade, South Dakota, July 16, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert

NASA has analyzed the the effects of rising temperatures and wildland fire occurrence since 1984 and discovered an impressive fact:

Carbon emissions from [worldwide] fires have grown from an average of 8 teragrams (8.8 million tons) per year from 1984 to 1995 to an average of 20 teragrams (22 million tons) per year from 1996 to 2008, increasing 2.4 times in the latter period.

This is interesting. It documents the rising trend of wildland fire occurrence worldwide that we are are also experiencing in the United States. And since NASA predicts “increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades” it makes a person wonder how we are going to deal with more wildfires when we can’t handle the ones we are currently having.

Below is a news release from NASA:

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December 4, 2012

Climate Models Project Increase in U.S. Wildfire Risk

WASHINGTON — Scientists using NASA satellite data and climate models have projected drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, were also presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Doug Morton of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., presented the new analysis of future U.S. fire activity. The analysis was based on current fire trends and predicted greenhouse gas emissions.

“Climate models project an increase in fire risk across the U.S. by 2050, based on a trend toward drier conditions that favor fire activity and an increase in the frequency of extreme events,” Morton said.
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12 years of fires on one map

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Wildland fires, 2001 through July 13, 2012, IDVSolutions

Wildland fires, 2001 through July 13, 2012, IDVSolutions

IDV Solutions compiled data from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite to make this map showing heat produced by fires between 2001 and July 13, 2012 in the United States.  A high resolution version of the map can be found HERE.

IDV Solutions describes the map:

Each dot represents a moment of pretty extreme heat, down to the one square kilometer level (I only retained fires greater than 100KW MW and of those only fires that the system was more than 50% confident of). They’ve been colored and scaled by “units” of the typical American nuclear power plant’s summertime capacity to provide some sort of baseline of the fires’ magnitude.

There are a couple temporal charts in there, too. The seasonal curve I would expect, but the overall upwards trend was interesting (and 2012 is only half through). Is it related to a lag-offset El Niño or La Niña effect?

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State of the global climate, 2012

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The World Meteorological Orgnaization (WMO) has issued a “Provisional Statement on the State of Global Climate in 2012″. Some of their conclusions about the number of fires differ slightly from the stats we assembled on November 23, 2012.

The WMO’s document is lengthy, but below are some excerpts.

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Global average temperature anomaly

Global average temperature anomaly. Credit WMO

Land and water temperature anomalies

Land and water temperature anomalies with respect ro 1961-1990 base period. Credit WMO

Wildfires 

Dry conditions, combined with the heat in the Northern Hemisphere during most of spring and summer 2012, contributed to devastating wildfires. Across the contiguous United States, the number of wildfires throughout the year was the least since 2000; however, the amount of acres burned per fire event during the same period was the largest on record.

Significant wildfires also developed in the Eurasian Continent. In Spain, over 184,000 hectares of land had been scorched by wildfires between January 1st and September 15th, the highest in a decade. The most notable wildfire ignited on September 24th in Valencia, forcing nearly 2,000 people to evacuate. In August 2012, southern parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded a wildfire that burned nearly 5,000 hectares of land, causing nearly 83 million U.S. dollars in damage.

Drought

2012 began with severe to exceptional drought, as defined by the North American Drought Monitor (NADM), across the south central and southeastern contiguous United States and the northern half of Mexico. In the southern Plains of the U.S., the 2012 drought was a continuation of severe drought conditions which developed in 2011. Throughout 2012, drought conditions evolved across the United States, improving in some areas while deteriorating in others.
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Wildfire briefing, November 19, 2012

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Firefighters discover dog fighting operation

Hawkins Co Fire in Tn, Photo by Hawkins Co EMA

Fire in Hawkins County, Tennessee. Photo by Hawkins County Emergency Management Agency

Firefighters working to put out a wildfire near Rogersville, Tennessee had to suspend their suppression operations after they discovered a facility threatened by the fire that housed dogs and roosters used for dog and cock fighting. Firefighters rescued about 40 of the animals. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Times News:

Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson told the Times-News Sunday the suspected operation is now the subject of a criminal investigation, and although no arrests had been made he hoped to be able to release more information about that on Monday.

Murrell added, “It put a damper on the firefighting efforts last (Saturday) night because everybody had to pull off until we found out what it was. Then it took most available law enforcement and fire (personnel) to try to get all the dogs out.”

As of Sunday night the fire, which started on Thursday, had burned about 1,800 acres.

Petition to hire the DC-10 air tankers

The managers of the Facebook page for the DC-10 air tankers have organized a petition drive designed to convince the US Forest Service to award a long-term contract for the DC-10s. More information is at our Fire Aviation web site.

Coal seam fire burns 1,000 acres

A wildfire that started from a mostly underground fire in a coal seam has burned 1,000 acres of land in Boone County, West Virginia. Firefighters are suppressing the fire using leaf blowers, rakes, and dozers. Trees that were down as a result of a summer wind storm and then Hurricane Sandy have added fuel to the fire and complicated access to the area. We have reported on numerous other coal seam fires over the years.

Pole Creek Fire affected the economy of Sisters, Oregon

Some wildfires may enhance the economy of a rural area by spending money at local businesses. But too often tourists stay away in droves or in the case of the Pole Creek Fire near Sisters, Oregon, population 2,000, the dense smoke in the community forced some residents to temporarily leave the area. An article in a Firewise publication reported that even though 800 firefighters were housed at an incident base a few miles down the road, in September restaurants had their revenue decrease by 40 to 50 percent. Stores saw less business and motels experienced reservation cancellations up to five weeks out.

In September we reported on a study about the economic effects of large wildfires which showed that on average, the US Forest Service spent six percent of wildfire suppression funding in the county where the fires occurred. Amounts of local spending varied from zero to 25 percent.

The Pole Cree Fire started from lightning on September 9 and burned 26,795 acres before it was contained October 20.

Fire management decisions affect local communities

When land management agencies make decisions about using less than aggressive initial attack strategies, attempt to manage fires “on the cheap”,  or allow a fire to burn naturally for weeks or months, they may not accurately realize the long term economic and health effects those decisions can have on the local population. These may or may not have been issues in the management of the Pole Creek Fire, but they are too often mentioned as factors that have crept into fire management over the last decade.

World Bank says temperatures may rise 7.2 degrees

The World Bank reported that the planet may see temperatures rise by 4 degrees Celsius, or about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, resulting in more wildfires, extreme heat waves, a decline in food supplies and a ‘life-threatening’ rise in sea level.

 

Thanks go out to Dick

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