https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-north-american-fire-deficit
The North American Fire Deficit: A fascinating new study with incredible findings
Excerpt: An important new paper published this week in Nature Communications looks at the historical record of fire in North America — A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned. Parks et al. find that large fires of recent decades in North America are not unprecedented:
Our study of 1851 tree-ring fire-scar sites and contemporary fire perimeters across the United States and Canada reveals a substantial, persistent fire deficit from 1984–2022 in many forest and woodland ecosystems, despite recent increases in burning. Contemporary fire occurrence is still far below historical (1600–1880) levels at NAFSN [North American tree-ring Fire-Scar Network] sites despite multiple large and ‘record-breaking’ recent fire years, such as 2020 in the western United States. Individual years with particularly widespread fire during the 1984–2022 period were not unprecedented in comparison with the active fire regimes of the historical period across most of the study region. Historically, fires in particularly active fire years were spatially more widespread and ubiquitous compared to fires burning during active contemporary years.
I’ll get back to the paper’s important findings in a moment, but first let’s take a look at comments from the paper’s peer review file, which Nature Communications helpfully publishes alongside the paper.
Reviewer 2 asks the authors to change their emphasis, lest their results get “used by deniers”:
I see this paper as potentially being used by deniers of climate change impacts. Consider if possible some rephrasing here to put even more emphasis on impact rather than on burned area.
The authors respond as they must in contemporary climate science:
We share the concern that climate change deniers may misuse our findings.
Note how the authors subtly recast Reviewer 2’s concern about “use” of the paper to a more appropriate concern about “misuse.” Of course, concerns about how one’s political opponents might use or misuse a paper should have no bearing on peer review — ideally, but not in today’s climate science. Ironically, this paper performs no analysis of changes in climate or climate impacts, making the Reviewer 2’s concern all the more inappropriate.
Even so, the paper made it through peer review. However, this vignette illustrates the ever-present political overlay on climate research — Do not give oxygen to climate deniers!
Now back to the paper.
The authors start by asking an important question (emphasis added):
[A]verage annual area burned since the late 19th and early- to mid-20th centuries is generally less than that experienced under historical fire regimes across many North American forests, resulting in a widespread 20th century ‘fire deficit’ relative to earlier time periods. However, area burned by wildfire has increased across much of North America over the last few decades. Over this time period (mid-1980s—present), several regions have experienced individual years with exceptionally high area burned, leading to questions about whether recent fire years are unprecedented. As area burned has increased rapidly since the mid-1980s in parts of North America, is it possible that the fire deficit has been reduced or eliminated?
…
Parks et al. recognize explicitly that their findings run counter to a popular narrative (somewhat ironically, that some of the paper’s coauthors have helped to promote) that climate change is fueling an unprecedented increase in fires, and by extension, that we should expect less fire in a world with mitigation policy success.
Many studies have reported increases in area burned associated with a warming climate over the last few decades across much of North America. Considering these studies, forest managers and the general public may be surprised to learn that a significant fire deficit persists in many forested ecosystems even as contemporary socio-economic fire impacts are increasing.
Climate change is of course real and poses risks. Accelerated decarbonization of the economy makes good sense for many reasons beyond just climate change.
However, modulating future forest fires is not among those reasons that make good sense. There is no carbon dioxide emissions control knob that can be used to moderate fire occurrence or severity (as some seem to believe).
In fact, the incredible fire deficit across almost all North American landscapes suggests — as Parks et al. argue — that the best way to moderate future fires is through better forest management, including much more fire.
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