You Ought to Have a Look: Smoke, Clouds and Snowfall
By PATRICK J. MICHAELS and PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER
Excerpt: Next up is an excellent review paper on wildfire occurrence in a warming world. The article, jointly authored by Stefan Doerr and Cristina Santín of Swansea University is part of a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Bdedicated to “The interaction of fire and mankind.” Doerr and Santín take us through the extant literature of the trends and variability of fire occurrence and the factors influencing them. What they find is in stark opposition to the conclusion that you’d come to by reading the mainstream press. To hear the authors tell it:
Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago.
This is an eye-opening read in light of the hype surrounding the Ft. McMurray fires of recent weeks and the general warming-is-causing-more-fires-trope that is paraded out every time there is a fire burning somewhere in the US. The authors go on to note that “[t]he media still promote perceptions of wildfire as the enemy even in very fire-prone regions, such as the western USA…”
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http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/yournews/65186
Jun 3, 2016
Wildfire: misconceptions about trends and impacts revealed in new research
A new analysis of global data related to wildfire, published by the Royal Society, reveals major misconceptions about wildfire and its social and economic impacts.
Prof. Stefan Doerr and Dr Cristina Santin from Swansea University’s College of Science carried out a detailed analysis of global and regional data on fire occurrence, severity and its impacts on society.
Their research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, examined a wide range of published data arising from satellite imagery, charcoal records in sediments and isotope-ratio records in ice cores, to build up a picture of wildfire in the recent and more distant past.
In contrast to what is widely portrayed in the literature and media reports, they found that:
- global area burned has seen an overall slight decline over past decades, despite some notable regional increases. Currently, around 4% of the global land surface is affected by vegetation fires each year;
- there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago;
- direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades
The researchers conclude:
“The data available to date do not support a general increase in area burned or in fire severity for many regions of the world. Indeed there is increasing evidence that there is overall less fire in the landscape today than there has been centuries ago, although the magnitude of this reduction still needs to be examined in more detail.”
Notwithstanding the serious impacts on society that emerge when fires occur close to populated areas, as exemplified so dramatically by the un-seasonally early wildfires in Canada this spring that led to the successful evacuation of an entire town of 80,000 inhabitants, the researchers find that the risk of direct death from fire for the population as a whole is relatively low compared with other natural hazards.
Global deaths 1901–2014
- wildfire 3,753
- earthquakes 2.5 million
- floods 7 million
Data from EM-DAT, emergency events database
The researchers, however, also warn about the serious implications of climate change, land use changes and increasing population density in the so-called wildland-urban interface. For instance, climate change has already led to a lengthening of the fire season in parts of North America and is likely to increase fire occurrence and severity in many regions of the globe including the UK.
They note:
“The warming climate, which is predicted to result in more severe fire weather in many regions of the globe in this century, will probably contribute further to both perceived and actual risks to lives, health and infrastructure. Therefore the need for human societies to coexist with fire will continue, and may increase in the future.”
Prof. Stefan Doerr of Swansea University, who is also the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, explained:
“Large scale land use changes are increasingly exposing non-fire adapted landscapes such as tropical peatlands to serious damage by fire”.
Dr Cristina Santin, a biologist at Swansea University, whose research also focuses on the impact of fires on the carbon cycle, added:
“Fire is a fundamental natural ecological agent in many of our ecosystems and only a ‘problem’ where we choose to inhabit these fire-prone regions or when we humans introduce it to non-fire-adapted ecosystems”.
In the synthesis the experts highlight the often fundamental, complex and inevitable role that fire has in both ‘natural’ and ‘man-made’ environments. They argue that the ‘wildfire problem’ is essentially more a social than a natural one and that we need to move towards a more sustainable co-existence with fire. This requires a balanced and informed understanding of the realities of wildfire occurrence and its effects.
About the research:
“Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world”: published by the Royal Society.
This innovative research paper was produced following a Royal Society discussion meeting, held in September, and was published as part of a volume exploring both the natural and human aspects of fire in the prestigious scientific journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
The full issue, which also contains contributions by the Swansea team on the contentious issue of upland burning practices in the UK and of fire effects on soils can be found on the Royal Society Publishing website.
Source: Swansea University
Study: Global Warming Isn’t Causing More Wildfires
A new study out of a Welsh university found there’s been no increase in “area burned or in fire severity for many regions of the world,” despite predictions global warming would cause more severe wildfires as temperatures rise.
In fact, researchers found “increasing evidence that there is overall less fire in the landscape today than there has been centuries ago.”
“Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses,” Drs. Stefan Doerr and Cristina Santin of Swansea University in Wales, wrote in their study.
“However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends,” they wrote.
The study comes as Canadian firefighters continue to put out a massive blaze in Alberta. For weeks, firefighters have been stamping out the Alberta fire, which forced 90,000 people out of their homes in Fort McMurray.
The fire’s consumed little over 2,000 square miles and shut down about half of the region’s oil production. People can expect to return to their homes in June depending on air quality and other factors.
It wasn’t long before liberal writers and environmentalists blamed the massive blaze on man-made global warming. Slate’s Eric Holthaus ran the headline “Wildfire Rips Through Canadian City, Forcing 80,000 to Flee. This Is Climate Change.”
“One thing that is certain is that this fire has a clear link to climate change,” he wrote. “Canada’s northern forests have been burning more frequently over recent decades as temperatures there are rising at twice the rate of the global average”
The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert wrote “it’s tough to pin any particular disaster on climate change, in the case of Fort McMurray the link is pretty compelling.”
“In Canada, and also in the United States and much of the rest of the world, higher temperatures have been extending the wildfire season,” she wrote. “Last year, wildfires consumed ten million acres in the U.S., which was the largest area of any year on record.”
Not everyone agreed. Holthaus and Kolbert were countered by Blair King, an environmental scientist, who wrote in The Huffington Post that activists “do not appear to understand that El Nino, not climate change, is responsible for the warm, dry winter.”
“Bad information makes for bad decisions, and attributing the forest fire to climate change would mean advancing bad information over good,” he wrote.
What’s more is Fort McMurray sits in a boreal forest — a fire-reliant ecosystem. Fire suppression techniques have allowed lots of trees to grow old, making them much more susceptible to burning and leaving lots of fuel for future fires.
“Essentially the report acknowledged that the trees surrounding Fort McMurray are hard-wired for fire and if they are not managed properly then these types of catastrophic fires will become more common,” King wrote.
The Swansea study seems to support arguments wildfires aren’t increasing, but researchers were still concerned that future warming could, in fact, increase wildfire risks.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150345.article-info
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world
Abstract
Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined. Global predictions for increased fire under a warming climate highlight the already urgent need for a more sustainable coexistence with fire. The data evaluation presented here aims to contribute to this by reducing misconceptions and facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire.
This article is part of themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.