Embedded Files
Prepared by Lindsey Padjen
MPH Candidate at the OHSU - PSU School of Public Health
Source: Pete Linforth from Pixabay
"This is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable."
"This is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable."
- António Guterres, UN Secretary General; commenting on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
"Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates."
(NASA, n.d.)
Since the mid-20th century, climate changes have been attributable to human behavior -- most consequentially the burning of fossil fuels, which raises the temperature of the Earth's surface by increasing the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide. Human activity has already warmed the earth by 1 degree Celsius, leading to varied and severe consequences that affect ecosystems across the planet such as melting glaciers, drought, increased frequency of severe weather, loss of biodiversity, and increased wildfire (NASA, n.d.).
Fire on the Rise
Fire on the Rise
Though fire naturally occurs in many environments, research has confirmed that climate change has already increased the frequency and intensity of wildfires, which will only worsen as the planet continues to heat up.
In the Western United States the number of large forest fires has doubled since 1984 due to climate change (C2ES, 2022). The maps above illustrate what this looks like in Oregon, comparing area burned between the periods of 1984 to 2000 and 2001 to 2022.
In some types of forests in the Western United States projections show that an average annual temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius would increase the median burned area per year as much as 600% (C2ES, 2022).
A longer fire season is expected in the Southeastern United States as well. Recent models suggest a 30% increase in the area burned by lighting-ignited wildfire between 2011 and 2060 (C2ES, 2022).
How is this happening?
How is this happening?
Source: U.S. Forest Service Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory from DOI
DROUGHT
DROUGHT
In the summer of 2022 drought spread across three continents, affecting the US, China, and large swaths of Europe. Research demonstrates that this extreme drought was made “20 times more likely by climate change” and can now be expected to occur as often as every 20 years (Costley, 2022). Ruffault and colleagues studied the effects of drought on the 2003 and 2016 extreme fires in the Mediterranean and found that drought increases fire conditions by drying out vegetation and creating an abundant fuel source and is likely to lead to more extreme wildfires in the region (2018).
REDUCED SNOWPACK
REDUCED SNOWPACK
Due to climate change, higher seasonal temperatures combined with reduced precipitation have decreased overall snowpack and led to an earlier spring snowmelt in mountainous regions in the Western U.S. By 2080, the Cascade range and the Sierra Nevada range are predicted to lose 74% or more of their seasonal snowpack. This snow loss reduces summer soil moisture and contributes to drier vegetation which will continue to increase fire potential in high elevation mountainous regions (Gergel, et al, 2017).
INCREASED FUEL
INCREASED FUEL
Between 1970 and 2015, human-caused climate change increased temperatures and decreased the amount of water vapor in the air across forests in the Western U. S. These changes have led to drier vegetation which serve as increased fuel during wildfires. As a result, western U.S. fire area is double what would be expected without human-cased climate changes. This amounts to an additional burned area roughly the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined (Abatzoglou & Williams, 2016).
FIRE SUPPRESSION
FIRE SUPPRESSION
Though the evidence is clear that climate change is exacerbating wildfire across the planet, poor forest management practices are amplifying the effects. Fire suppression, largely practiced in the Western U.S. has contributed to dense forest ecosystems that are highly flammable and contain extensive fuel supply. These would have been thinned by smaller naturally occurring fires had they not been routinely suppressed (Keane, et al., 2002).
Impacts of Wildfire on Climate and Ecosystems
Impacts of Wildfire on Climate and Ecosystems
Source: Buvrix27 from Pixabay
Since 1984, 70% of ecoregions with late snowmelt zones (having a snow-free date of May or later) have seen increases in wildfire. For example in the Southern Rockies the area burned in 2020 exceeds the total area burned over the past 36 years combined (Kampf et al., 2022).
Fire in these areas leads to less water content in the snowpack and 18-24 less days of snow presence in the ecosystem (Kampf et al., 2022).
By killing taller trees, wildfire diminishes the protective tree canopy and increases forest openness which promotes earlier snowmelt from increased solar radiation (Vose, et al., 2018).
In addition to decreasing water supply for humans, plants, and animals, earlier snowmelt from wildfire, compounds the effects of climate change, leading to greater incidence of wildfire and illustrating the mutually reinforcing relationship between climate change and wildfire.
Source: USDA
Forests serve as carbon sinks, pulling carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas driving climate change, out of the atmosphere and storing it in trees and soil (Davis, et al., 2019).
Though fire contributes additional CO2 to the atmosphere, forest regeneration neutralizes these contributions over time (Davis, et al., 2019).
With increased frequency and severity of wildfires, Davis and colleagues found multiple ecosystems where the climate was no longer suitable for tree regeneration following wildfire. Reduced moisture in the air and soil combined with high temperatures made seedlings unable to establish and survive. High intensity fires, made possible by abundance of fuels, limit seed availability and deteriorate soil conditions (2019).
Without regeneration these forests and others may cease to exist, exacerbating the climate crisis by removing important carbon storage from the planet which means more CO2 will be held in the atmosphere.
Health Effects
Health Effects
Between 2001 and 2018, 61% of countries experienced an increase in human exposure to days of very high or extremely high fire danger. Countries with a lower human development index (HDI) are more likely to experience an increase than countries with a higher HDI (Romallo et al., 2022).
Source: Japan Meteorological Agency
"Black Summer"
"Black Summer"
"Australia’s 2019–2020 bushfires were unprecedented in scale, intensity, and the extent of damage caused. Climate change increased the probability of bushfires by more than 30%. The fires directly caused some 450 deaths, 1,300 emergency asthma presentations, and 1,120 cardiovascular and 2,030 respiratory admissions, in addition to worsening mental health outcomes and displacing 47,000 people. These bushfires contributed to 715 megatonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to around 0·2% of global greenhouse gas emissions that year" (Romanello et al., 2022).
Source: Multnomah County
xAir Quality
xAir Quality
Depending on human’s willingness and ability to mitigate the causes of climate change, the CO2 emissions from fires across Western North America will increase by 60% - 250% each August and September beginning in 2080. Even with best-case mitigation, particulate matter (PM2.5), a small and harmful type of pollution in the air, will increase by 50% by 2050. (Xie, et al., 2022). Wildfire smoke has dramatic unhealthy effects on human health. To learn more visit these pages on air quality.
Source: Beeblebrox
Water
Water
In addition to affecting wildfires, "Climate change is a major driver of changes in the frequency, duration, and geographic distribution of severe storms, floods, and droughts" (Vose, et al., 2018) and is contributing to the depletion of groundwater sources and deteriorating the quality of surface water. Wildfire compounds these effects, damaging water access and quality. To learn more visit this page on wildfire's impact on water.
There are many ingenious and beautiful solutions for the climate crisis.
There are many ingenious and beautiful solutions for the climate crisis.
Image Source: Markus Spiske from Unsplash
Source: US Climate Resilience Toolkit
Traditional Ecosystem Knowledge of the Karuk Tribe
Traditional Ecosystem Knowledge of the Karuk Tribe
(click to expand)
“Fire is a cultural resource.”
- Leaf Hillman, Karuk Director of Natural Resources
“Fire is a cultural resource.”
- Leaf Hillman, Karuk Director of Natural Resources
The Karuk Tribe live on and manage 1.048 million acres of their aboriginal lands in Northern California. They are working to revitalize Traditional Ecosystem Knowledge (TEK) because their connection to this Indigenous wisdom has been weakened following settler colonial contact and subsequent land use practices. The fire management practices that are part of TEK, include frequent, low intensity prescribed burns, which reduce the availability of fuels, lessening the severity of wildfires and providing important resilience in the face of worsening fire conditions due to climate change. In utilizing TEK it is important to maintain Karuk knowledge sovereignty, engaging the tribe as a partner or owner in the effort rather than appropriating traditional wisdom (U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, 2022). Turning forested land back over to the original indigenous inhabitants would also be an efficient way to reduce wildfire severity in the changing climate because North American Indigenous Tribes effectively managed wildfire and stewarded healthy ecosystems for thousands of years.
Source: Project Drawdown from YouTube (1:00)
Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown
(Click to expand)
"'Drawdown' is the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible." - (Project Drawdown, n.d.) Project Drawdown exists to help the world avoid catastrophic climate change. Its Intro to Climate Solutions video series details the latest science, innovation, insights, and most importantly hope for reaching drawdown.
Related Pages
Related Pages
References
References
Abatzoglou, J. T., & C. A. Kolden. (2013). Relationships between climate and macroscale area burned in the western United States. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 22 (7), 1003–1020. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF13019
Beeblebrox. (2020, October 8). Area of the lake short partially burned by the Swan Lake Fire. [Photograph] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Lake_(Alaska)#/media/File:Burned_area_Hidden_Lake.jpg
Buvrix27. (2015, December 11). [Snow and trees] [Photography]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/winter-scene-mountain-wonderland-1086646/
C2ES. (2022, November 28). Wildfires and climate change. https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change/
Costley, D. (2022, October 5). Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/science-china-droughts- united-states-2336dc7757d8a0855d21e711ccb0fee3
Davis, K. T., Dobrowski, S. Z., Higuera, P.E., Holden, Z. A., Veblen, T. T., Rother, M. T., Parks, S. A., Sala, A., & Maneta, M. P. (2019, March 11). Wildfires and climate change push low-elevation forests across a critical climate threshold for tree regeneration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(13), 6193-6198. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1815107116
Drawdown. (2022, November 14). Project Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/
Gergel, D. R., B. Nijssen, J. T. Abatzoglou, D. P. Lettenmaier, & M. R. Stumbaugh. (2017). Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA. Climatic Change, 141 (2), 287–299. doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1899-y
Japan Meteorological Society. (2020, January 4). 2019–20 Australian bushfire as seen by Himawari [Photograph] Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_as_seen_by_Himawari_8_2020-01-04.jpg
Kampf, S. K., McGrath, D., Sears, M., Fassnacht, S. R., Kiewiet, L., & Hammond, J. C. (2022, September 19). Increasing wildfire impacts on snowpack in the western U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11(39). https://doi-org.liboff.ohsu.edu/10.1073/pnas.2200333119
Keane, R. E., K. C. Ryan, T. T. Veblen, C. D. Allen, J. A. Logan, & B. Hawkes. (2002). The cascading effects of fire exclusion in the Rocky Mountain ecosystems. Rocky Mountain futures: An ecological perspective. Forest Service US Department of Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.2737/RMRS-GTR-91
Linforth, P. (2017, April 26). [Earth from space, with fire] [Photograph]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/climate-change-global-warming-2254711/
Monitoring trends in burn severity. (2022, November 15). [Data visualization]. https://www.mtbs.gov/viewer/?region=all
Multnomah County. (2022, November 28). The Portland Waterfront appears barely visible on Sept. 15 from record-breaking wildfire smoke. [Photograph]. https://www.multco.us/sustainability/multnomah-county-vows-continue-advocating-litigating-life-sustaining-climate-after.
NASA. (2022, November 13). Global warming vs. climate change. Global climate change Vital signs of the planet. https://climate.nasa.gov/global-warming-vs-climate-change/.
Project Drawdown. (2022, December 7). Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/
Project Drawdown. (2021, March 16). Climate solutions 101 presented by Project Drawdown [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czWg-UTd76c
Romanello M., Di Napoli, C., Drummond, P., Green, C., Kennard, H., Lampard, P., Scamman, D., Arnell, N., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Ford, L. B., Belesova, K., Bowen, K., Cai, W., Callaghan, M., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Chambers, J., van Daalen, K. R., Dalin, C., Dasandi, N., ... Costello, A. (2022, November 5). The 2022 report of the Lancet countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels. The Lancet, 400(10363), 1619-1654). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01540-9
Ruffault, J., Curt, T., Martin-StPaul, N. K., Moron, V., & Trigo, R. M. (2018, March 16). Extreme wildfire events are linked to global-change-type droughts in the northern Mediterranean. National Hazards Earth System Science 18, 847-856. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-847-2018
Spiske, M. (2016, June 23). [Aerial view of forest] [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/5KvErlbdeyo
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. (2022, December 6). The Karuk’s innate relationship with fire: Adapting to Climate Change on the Klamath. https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/karuk-innate-relationship-fire-adapting-climate-change-klamath
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. [Burn line featuring Tanoak acorns] [Photograph]. https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/karuk-innate-relationship-fire-adapting-climate-change-klamath
U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S, Forestry Service. (2022, November 28). Planted seedling in burned over forest. https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/science-supporting-wildfire-crisis-strategy
U.S. Department of the Interior. (2016, July 19). Wildfires heat up across the West. https://www.doi.gov/blog/wildfires-heat-across-west
Vose, J. M., Peterson, D. L., Domke, G. M., Fettig, C. J., Joyce, L. A., Kenane, R. E., Luce, C. H., Prestemon, J. P., Band, L. E., Clark, J. S., Cooley, N. E., D'Amato, A., Halofsky, J. E., Marland, G., Bennett, N. & Aragon-Long, S. (2018). Forests. The Fourth National Climate Assessment. https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/front-matter-about/
Xie, Y., Lin, M., Decharme, B., Delire, C., Horowitz, L. W., Lawrence, D. M., Li, F., & Séférian, R. (2022). Tripling of western US particulate pollution from wildfires in a warming climate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119 (14). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2111372119.
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