Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumSouthwest Forests May Never Return After Age Of Megafires - Changed Soil, Changed Climate
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The last 10 years have seen more than 60 mega-fires over 100,000 acres in size in the West. When they get that big, firefighters often let them burn themselves out, over a period of weeks, or even months. These fires typically leave a scorched earth behind that researchers are beginning to fear may never come back as forest again.
Fires, of course, are a natural part of the forest lifecycle, clearing out old stands and making way for vigorous new growth out of the carbon-rich ashes. What is not natural is the frequency and destructiveness of the wildfires in the past decade -- fires which move faster, burn hotter, and are proving harder to manage than ever before. These wildfires are not exactly natural, because scientists believe that some of the causes, at least, are human-created.
For one thing, the intensity of the recent fires, researchers say, is in part the result of a warming and drying trend which has been underway for over a decade, and which some climate scientists believe will become a permanent condition as anthropogenic climate change continues to increase.
Experts also blame the fire-suppression policy which has been in effect for much of the last century. In the past, frequent low-intensity lightning fires left behind a park-like patchwork of woodlands and open meadows. The Smokey the Bear philosophy of fire prevention interfered with this natural pattern. By always putting fires out rather than letting them burn freely, forests throughout the West have become thick and overgrown.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-southwests-forests-may-never-recover-from-megafires/277545/
WovenGems
(776 posts)There's an little weather pattern. When the Sahara turns green again so will the southwest. In about 9,000 years. It's a 16,000 years cycle.
NickB79
(19,243 posts)Seeing as how we've actually stopped and even reversed the onset of the next Ice Age with man-made climate change (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/science/earth/04arctic.html?_r=0), future climate cycles are all thrown into doubt. Uncharted territory and all that.
The change in orbit that causes the 16,000 years cycle will still happen but other factors may just make it seem less or more pronounced.
Keep in mind that there are also winners in climate change. Around here we just had the best spring ever. Fat birds, fat rabbits, fat squirrels and very happy hawks and falcons.
Warpy
(111,261 posts)which has got to be one of the most monumentally stupid policies out there, second only to fire suppression because rich people built their vacation cabins out in the woods.
When I did a day trip up to Bandelier, I couldn't believe how much dead wood was on the forest floor. I thought it looked like a disaster waiting to happen and sure enough, a controlled burn got out of control and burned part of Los Alamos down a few years later. That fire was said to have sterilized the soil to a depth of at least a foot.
I don't know how long it will take the forest out here to rebuild after our drought is over, or if the drought will ever be over. I do hope its being over will be the case.