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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 14 2018, @01:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the hot-and-buggy-study dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Climate change causing more severe wildfires, larger insect outbreaks in temperate forests

A warmer, drier climate is expected is increase the likelihood of larger-scale forest disturbances such as wildfires, insect outbreaks, disease and drought, according to a new study co-authored by a Portland State University professor.

The study, published Oct. 19 in the journal Nature Communications, sought to provide a more complete snapshot of disturbances in the world's temperate forests by quantifying the size, shape and prevalence of disturbances and understanding their drivers.

The study found that while many temperate forests are dominated by small-scale disturbance events -- driven largely by windstorms and cooler, wetter conditions -- there was also a strong link between high disturbance activity and warmer and drier-than-average climate conditions. Andrés Holz, a co-author and geography professor in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said this suggests that with a warming climate, disturbances are expected to become larger and more severe in some temperate forests including the western U.S.

"Under the warmer conditions we have been seeing, it is likely that we're going to see a higher probability of areas that tend to have very big disturbances," he said.

Among the study's findings:

Areas with low disturbance activity were largely associated with windstorms under cooler, rainy conditions, while areas with large disturbance activity were largely associated with wildfires, bark beetle outbreaks and drought under warmer, drier conditions.

In the majority of landscapes outside protected areas, disturbance patches were generally larger and less complex in shape than in protected areas. For example, human-made disturbances like logging are simpler in shape than the path a wildfire, storm or insect outbreak might take inside a protected area. But in landscapes affected by large-scale fires or outbreaks, the size and complexity of what happens inside and outside the protected areas are more comparable.

"Climate change is mimicking the footprint of disturbances in protected areas to what we are doing through land-use change outside of protected areas," Holz said. "Under warmer conditions, we might see more similarities between protected areas and their surroundings in some temperate forests globally."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @01:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @01:24PM (#761722)

    There is literally a small army of people who are experts in fighting fires that get laid off each winter and would probably love the work, has someone made a cost benefit analysis that concluded it isnt worth paying them to control these fires? Is it even legal for private citizens to hire them to save their neighborhoods?

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Username on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:50PM (7 children)

    by Username (4557) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:50PM (#761738)

    This just in, in most of the united states, climate change caused it to get colder. Some places are even reporting snow. Further studies have concluded that this will continue to happen EVERY YEAR unless we fund programs to change the climate... change.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:07PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:07PM (#761743)

      You sound concerned about the long ignored second derivative of climate. The rate of climate change change has been increasing.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by slinches on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:01PM (1 child)

        by slinches (5049) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:01PM (#761765)

        What I think we should really be concerned about is the third derivative of climate. The climate jerk. Of which, you are an excellent example.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @07:41PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @07:41PM (#761868)

          I didn't realize it keeps going after jerk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jounce [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:11PM (#761820)

      Really? Even after the oil companies admitted climate change is happening we still get trolls like yourself trying to diminish the issue? Stay edgy my man!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:52PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:52PM (#761843)

      That's the stuff... use seasonal weather as an argument against climate change. But it's so COLD today!

      • (Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday November 14 2018, @11:43PM

        by Username (4557) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @11:43PM (#761965)

        This isn't an argument against climate change, it's one for it. Because the climate changes, and you cannot prove it doesn't change. That's why global warming doesn't exist anymore, since the climate changed. It's one of those goal post moves. We cannot prove global warming is bad, so we redefine it postmodernist style. Now it can mean any type of change in climate. Warmer. Colder. Now it's doom whichever way. This doom justifies demands for more funding for pet projects.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 14 2018, @07:02PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @07:02PM (#761849) Journal

      This just in, people who pretend to be smart on the internet don't know how averages work.

  • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:56PM (4 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:56PM (#761739)

    I thought putting out every wildfire, natural or not, was causing them to become more severe.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:28PM (3 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:28PM (#761775) Journal

      Not... exactly?

      Forestry management has been improving and controlled burns in california have been an actually used tool in the toolbox of wildfire prevention for at least a decade. And on-the-whole over-accumulated leaf detritus is about the same as it was when people first started raising the objection you have now(instead of getting way worse).

      Regardless, the kind of factor analysis this paper is doing can often see past other signals like that when they're accounted for in the models to measure other variables like, say, climate change. From the paper:

      [...]we focused on two complementary plant traits corresponding to disturbance resistance and susceptibility, i.e., maximum potential tree height and mean wood density, extracted from the TRY database. Plant height directly increases susceptibility to wind disturbance and is also a proxy for biomass accumulation potential, which is related to fuel load in the context of disturbances by wildfire.

      So they're not ignoring that at all.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday November 14 2018, @10:28PM (2 children)

        by edIII (791) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @10:28PM (#761943)

        Do you have any citations for what you've said?

        Better management is awesome. Forests need fires every so often apparently, or humans need to clear the brush out to continually reduce the fire risk. If we are doing better, that is good to know.

        And on-the-whole over-accumulated leaf detritus is about the same as it was when people first started raising the objection you have now(instead of getting way worse)

        I'm interested in citations for this. Do you have any resources where this is quantified?

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:32PM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:32PM (#761754) Homepage Journal

    But it could very well go back. You know, we’re talking about, over millions of years.

    And this is so interesting. They say, "oh, Climate Change is killing our beautiful insects, so many Bees & Butterflies dieing!" Dieing massively, right? And they say, "oh, Climate Change is making so many horrible insects EXPLODE, look what's happening with the Bark Beetles, the Mosquitos & Spiders everywhere." They say it's the both. More from the bad Insect & less from the good ones.

    I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again. I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man made. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs.

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