This report card explores the preparedness actions that each of the 50 states are taking in relation to their current and future changes in climate threats. From: statesatrisk.org
Here’s an interesting map.
Tag Archives: Fire Ecology
Major Wildfire Outbreak in Central and Western Africa as Drought, Hunger Grow More Widespread
Drought and heat combine to expand fire size and extend the burning season. In Arizona, in the 20th Century, lightning ignited the largest fires in early summer when low humidity and high temperature had prepped the vegetation combustion. Human-caused fires during the more-humid conditions of the rest of the year were smaller. However, as things have warmed up and the drought has intensified, large human-caused fires are beginning to flare up in other seasons. The devastating result is that the fire recurrence interval is becoming too short for regeneration by most native perennial plants. Much of the Sonoran Desert is becoming an annual weedland (https://garryrogers.com/2014/01/14/desert-fire/).
The major news organizations haven’t picked it up yet, but there’s a massive wildfire outbreak now ongoing over Central and Western Africa. These wildfires are plainly visible in the NASA/MODIS satellite shot — covering about a 1,400 mile swath stretching from the Ivory Coast, through Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon and on across the Central African Republic, the Congo, and Gabon.
(Very large wildfire outbreak in Central Africa in the February 10 LANCE-MODIS satellite shot. For reference, bottom edge of frame covers about 350 miles. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)
Smoke from these fires is extremely widespread — stretching over almost all of Western and Central Africa, blanketing parts of Southern Africa and ghosting on out over the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Together with these massive fires we have what appears to be a rather significant CO2 plume showing up in the Coperinicus monitoring system (see below). It’s a signature reminiscent of…
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New report assesses impacts of drought on US forests
A new U.S. Forest Service report, edited in partnership with Duke University, projects that drought will have far-reaching impacts on U.S. forests and grasslands in coming decades. phys.org
What about logging, grazing, roads, transmission corridors, and recreation?
Reporting On Fire Sends Mixed Information
One can’t know what was really said by someone in a news report–reporters do get quotes wrong–but I would agree with the Chris Topik, TNC representative, that more people are living in the forest and thus vulnerable to fire. But I disagree with his implied solution that we need more logging of the forest, rather it rests with the county governments to limit home building in these areas, and to reduce the flammability of homes not the forest. We simply cannot log our way to a fire-proof forest. www.thewildlifenews.com
GR: Whenever the U. S. Forest Service claims that forests need to be logged, you can bet there is a large corporation that is going to profit.
Climate Change and Wildfire
Wildfire Ecology
I’ve been interested in natural vegetation response to wildfire for more than 40 years. Most of my work involves the desert shrublands and woodlands of western North America. From the beginning of my studies, I saw that Asian weeds brought by European sheep and cattle herders had heavily infested native vegetation. It soon became clear that added fuel provided by the weeds was allowing fires to increase in size and number. During the past century and a half, the weeds have replaced vast areas of native shrublands and woodlands that could not contend with the increasing wildfires.
This is one of the study sites that Jeff Steele and I established in 1974. Two fires (1974 and 1985), converted this formerly diverse Sonoran Desert landscape of small trees and tall Saguaro cactus into an impoverished shrubland.
Humans with their weeds and livestock led the first devastating wave of wildfire across the arid and semi-arid lands of the world. The next wave will come from human-caused global warming.
The following is from Global Warming Forecasts
[Click this link for my review of the Forecasts. Below, I’ve include 2050 as an example of the forecasts.]
Brazil inflames forest fires with pro-deforestation laws
New laws under consideration will likely spark more tree-cutting − despite serious drought already contributing to a big increase in vast destructive fires.
Of last year’s fires, 8,000 occurred in the central region, where the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia share borders. This area, which encroaches on the cerrado, a vast tropical savanna ecoregion that is one of Brazil’s most threatened biomes, has become a fast-developing new agricultural powerhouse, producing soy, maize and cotton. From: www.climatechangenews.com
GR: Toxic wastes, global warming, livestock grazing, and farming are eliminating forests, shrublands, grasslands, and soils. The losses are heartbreaking. The realization that instead of slowing or stopping the losses are accelerating is dumbfounding.
Australian Bushfires Signal New Climate Dangers – MAHB
“The recent bushfires in Western Australia were much more than “bush” fires as they raged through mature crops of wheat, barley, canola and oats, and pastures where many thousands of sheep grazed. The fires claimed four lives and the livelihoods of many farmers as the estimated financial losses of crops and farm animals reached A$60m – a figure expected to rise steeply as the full extent of the damage emerged. One report showed a loss of 15,000 sheep and many cattle.[1] The fires swept eastwards and in South Australia additional fires caused more deaths of people and farm animals and burned through vast areas of mature crops and grazing lands.[2]”
From: mahb.stanford.edu
GR: This story is about food for humans. The more important issue is the long-term effects of the fires. Followed by invasive plants and soil erosion, fires are transforming vast stretches of native vegetation into weedlands. The damage to soils, native plants, and wildlife diminishes the diversity and health of ecosystems and reduces productivity and carrying capacity.
Great Basin rangeland facing challenges with climate change
“Fighting the effects of climate change in Great Basin rangeland is drawing together federal, state and private interests to deal with what scientists say is greater weather variability causing big swings in forage available for cattle and wildlife.” More at www.idahostatesman.com.
(The photograph shows an impoverished cheatgrass landscape that native shrub vegetation occupied a century ago.)
GR: Since people introduced cheatgrass to the region in the late 1800’s, the little weedy Asian grass has replaced native vegetation across millions of acres. A tremendous loss of natural productivity occurred as native plant and animal species declined.
Cheatgrass carries fire better than native plants. Fire frequency has increased, and native plants don’t have time to establish and mature before the next fire. Cheatgrass seeds survive the fires, and without competitors, the plant continues to increase.
For almost a century, range scientists have tried everything they can think of to control cheatgrass. They have failed, and it appears that the plant has become a permanent resident. There are only two reasonable management approaches now. First, remove domestic livestock so that the remaining native wildlife can survive on the impoverished cheatgrass ranges. And second, try to protect and preserve the few remaining areas with no cheatgrass.
Brazil’s Great Amazon Rainforest Burns as Parched Megacities Fall Under Existential Threat
“One need only look at today’s satellite image of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest to notice something’s terribly wrong. A vast 1,000 mile swath of what should be some of the wettest lands on the globe running south of the world’s largest river is covered by a dense pall of smoke. Scores of plumes boil up out of the burning and sweltering forest. Pumping dark clouds into the sky, the fires’ tell-tale streaks out over a drought-parched Brazil, across the Atlantic, and over to Africa where the plume is again thickened by yet more wildfires.” From: robertscribbler.com
GR: AFTER THE FIRES: Lightning-caused or human-caused forest fires destroy natural ecosystems when these occur:
- Soil-damaging land use (farming, grazing, recreation) begins immediately after the fire
- New fires occur before the original vegetation has time to recover
- Invasive plants are introduced
- OR, climate has changed to a regime more suited to a different vegetation (grassland or shrubland)
Any of these might lead to more or less permanent decline in biodiversity, productivity, and stability. Combinations of two or more are highly likely to cause permanent decline. (#desertification, #fire, #vegetation-change, and see: https://garryrogers.com/?s=Fire&submit=Search).
See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers Biosphere News
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 