climate change
Snowless Winter Spells Spring Wildfire Danger
16 April 2012 09:31 AM
Already, one out of control blaze has claimed three lives and destroyed homes in the drought-stricken state. An abundance of highly combustible fuel created by prolonged dry spells, combined with strong gusty winds is providing perfect conditions for wildfires. Colorado firefighters are bracing themselves for a long and hectic season.
Ken Neubecker, director of the Western Rivers Institute said “It’s worse right now in the Roaring Fork Valley than it was in 2002 and that was a pretty years for fires.” March was one of the warmest and driest on record with some regions of the state having no measurable precipitation during the month. Read More...
Comments
U.S. to Monitor Arctic Climate Change Challenges
26 March 2012 06:07 PM
But, as concerns about melting sea ice and shrinking icebergs grow, there are clearly opportunities for gaining access to areas previously considered beyond our reach.
As the climate continues to change and ice retreats, we have the opportunity to discover new shipping routes and to find ways to harvest a multitude of long-locked natural resources.
Despite the fact that things may be warming up in the Arctic, it will still remain a very difficult and extreme environment to monitor and explore.
Read More...
Canada’s Greatest Climate Change Concern?
09 March 2012 12:28 PM
The polar icecaps are melting? So what.
There’s an increase in drought conditions? I don’t mind, I buy bottled water.
More forest fires will occur? Not my problem.
Rising sea levels? What do I care, I live miles away from the coast.
Escalating temperatures? Bring it on - I look great with a tan!
But now there’s an altogether more worrying effect of the shifts in climate patterns that even the greatest minds at work in government, the opposition or Greenpeace have managed to overlook.
We’re talking about a mass extinction that could bring an entire nation to its knees. Read More...
The Need for Accurate Fire Weather Data Intensifies
23 February 2012 05:07 PM
Many areas of the vast northern landscape are warming up considerably and fears that we could see a significant increase in the number of wild fires are becoming a frightening reality.
Dr. Mike Flannigan, Natural Resources Canada senior research scientist and professor of renewable resources with the University of Alberta, delivered a presentation recently that will be of great concern to wild fire professionals everywhere.
Read More...
Wild Fire Worries in the Wild West
20 February 2012 01:32 PM
But a new study looking at historical data has fire management professionals rethinking the value of wild fires and their impact on the local environment.
A recently published paper by a 12-strong team of researchers from the University of Oregon concludes that human presence has helped change the fire regime in the western US. Early settlers suppressed wildfires and altered the landscape through the introduction of grazing and other intensive land use changes. Read More...
The Billion Dollar Costs of Climate Change
20 January 2012 01:05 PM
In Canada, a groundbreaking report issued in fall 2011 warns not just of the environmental impacts of climate change but perhaps more significantly, the economic implications involved.
The report by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (NRT), estimates that within a few short years the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change in Canada will be in the region of $5 billion a year.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, melting or otherwise. With costs forecast to rise sharply to a staggering $43 billion by the middle of the century, the report states “Climate change will be expensive for Canada and Canadians”. Read More...
New Model Predicts South American Fire Activity
23 November 2011 10:15 AM
Tracking minute changes in sea surface temperatures can help researchers predict the severity of South America's fire season months in advance, a new study finds.
Researchers say their computer model can accurately forecast the strength of the fire season three to five months in advance, enough time to allow governments to prepare for and even attempt to mitigate the severity of fires in South American rainforests. Imagine that—a “crystal ball” that gives the power of future prediction and ample time to carry out mitigation tactics like prescribed burning (safely, with a portable RAWS) to control the fuel load, and to insure there is a network of fixed RAWS accumulating and data to assess where resources will be required. It’s an extremely powerful tool—but only if it’s properly acted upon.
Deaths of Forests Mean a Loss of Key Climate Protector
15 November 2011 08:37 PM
Scientists say the future habitability of the Earth might well depend on the answer. For, while a majority of the world’s people now live in cities, they depend more than ever on forests, in a way that few of them understand. Read More...
Climate change disasters will cost $14 billion
15 November 2011 05:50 PM
If you think these numbers are high, consider the researchers only chose a highly conservative margin, by only picking six significant climate-change related natural disasters between 2000-2009. Read More...
NASA's "World on Fire"
26 October 2011 02:48 PM
Individual, local wildfires tend to stand out in the news: California's deadly 2009 Station Fire, fires in Russia sparked by a 2010 summer heat wave, and blazes raging across Texas since November 2010. But at any given time, thousands more wildfires are burning around the world—some wild and deadly, some intentional and controlled for land clearing.
Now, scientists using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites have pieced together a decade-long global tour of the world's fires, from waves of grassland fire sweeping across Africa, "the fire continent," to agricultural fires in Asia and to catastrophic wildfires in the western United States. Since Terra launched in 1999 and Aqua in 2002, the MODIS instruments have mapped more than 40 million actively burning fires around the world. This long-term record, MODIS scientists say, is particularly important for understanding how fires respond to climate change and changing human populations.
Read more: nasa.gov Read More...
Arctic Wildfires May Boost Climate Change
08 September 2011 11:24 AM
In the late summer and autumn of 2007 the Anaktuvuk River fire, on the north slope of the Brooks Range in Alaska, burned over 1,000 square kilometres of Arctic tundra. This doubled the total burned in this region over the past 50 years. Scientists who estimated the damage from his particular fire found that this fire released around 2.1 teragrams of carbon – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the entire country of Barbados.
Read More...
An Extreme Year for Disasters in the U.S.
08 September 2011 10:42 AM
Unprecedented triple-digit heat and devastating drought leading to massive wildfires. Deadly tornadoes. Massive rivers overflowing. A billion-dollar blizzard. Hurricane-caused flooding. Earthquakes in parts of the country that rarely experience them.
Climate experts point to global warming, meteorologists cite the influence of the La Nina weather phenomenon or natural variability and, in the case of tornadoes hitting populated areas, many simply call the death and destruction bad luck. But given the variety and violence of both short-term weather events and longer-term effects like a Southwestern drought that has lasted years, more scientists say climate itself seems to be shifting and weather extremes will become more common. “A warmer atmosphere has more energy to power storms. We’ve loaded the dice,” says Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology for Weather Underground, Inc. “Years like 2011 may become the new normal in the United States in coming decades.” Read More...
The 2011 "Hundred Year" Fire in the Great Dismal Swamp *UPDATED
29 August 2011 02:55 PM
According to Rick Vollick, Regional Fire Planner of the Wallkill River NWR, this is a massive fire, a “hundred year” fire as he calls it. This image, taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows that the fire is producing dense smoke as it burns in the swamp. At the time of this shot, the fire was about 1,200 acres, but as of mid August it was over 4,000 acres. Read More...
Is Climate Change to Blame for Increased WIldfire Severity?
01 August 2011 10:14 PM
Source: National Interagency Fire Center
Wildfires can provide a dramatic reminder of the impact human activities are having on our planet. In recent months, the Southwestern United States has experienced devastating forest fires. As of June 2nd, over 3 million acres had burned throughout the country this year, representing the largest acreage burned by that point in the year since 2000. According to data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the total number of acres burned between 1960 and 2009 has greatly increased. Additionally, the number of acres burned per individual fire event has also increased, at an even sharper rate, demonstrating a trend toward more severe fires. This is true despite the fact that U.S. forest acreage decreased from 1945-1997.
Read More...Fire to Become Increasingly Important Driver of Atmospheric Change in Warming World
01 August 2011 05:47 PM
Read More...
