Drought, Disease and the Dastardly Don!

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PPONR: Runaway Positive Feedback  –  072502

[Report prepared by FIRE-EARTH Science and affiliated scientists.]

• Report available via FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

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Wildfires Worsen Climate Change Positive Pull

National Science Foundation: Press Release 09-081

Fire Is an Important and Under-Appreciated Part of Global Climate Change

Study identifies significant contributions of fire to climate change and identifies feedbacks between fire and climate change

April 23, 2009

Fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change, according to 22 authors of an article published in the April 24 issue of the journal Science. The authors determined that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that increases global temperature.

California Fires (June 2008)

A heat wave and windy weather plagued firefighters in California in mid-June 2008 as they worked to contain hundreds of fires across the state. Many of the fires were triggered by lightning on Friday, June 20. This natural-color image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on Monday, June 23, shows places where the sensor detected actively burning fires (red outlines). Fires appear most numerous in Northern California. The Northern region of California has experienced record low levels of rainfall this spring, leaving dry vegetation in the area. This in conjunction with windy weather has made firefighting efforts difficult. Image and Caption: MODIS Web.

Fires in Texas and Oklahoma (April 2009)

Severe weather in the second week of April 2009 fanned wildfires in northern Texas and southern Oklahoma. This image of the area was captured on April 9, 2009, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Places where the sensor detected active fires are outlined in red. A line of fires stretched across the plains west of Dallas-Forth Worth, and strong winds were driving smoke plumes from the fires toward the cities. Several people died, and hundreds of homes were destroyed according to the Texas Forest Service. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response [sic] Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

The work is the culmination of a meeting supported by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), both based at the University of California, Santa Barbara and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The authors call on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to fully integrate fire into their assessments of global climate change, and consider fire-climate feedbacks, which have been largely absent in global models.

The article ties together various threads of knowledge about fire, which have, until now, remained isolated in disparate fields including ecology, global modeling, physics, anthropology and climatology.

Increasing numbers of wildfires are influencing climate as well, the authors report. “The tragic fires in Victoria, Australia, emphasize the ubiquity of recent large wildfires and potentially changing fire regimes that are concomitant with anthropogenic climate change,” said David Bowman of the University of Tasmania. “Our review is both timely and of great relevance globally.”

Carbon dioxide is the most important and well-studied greenhouse gas that is emitted by burning plants. However, methane, aerosol particulates in smoke, and the changing reflectance of a charred landscape each contribute to changes in the atmosphere caused by fire. Consequences of large fires have huge economic, environmental, and health costs, report the authors.

The authors state, “Earth is intrinsically a flammable planet due to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, widespread lightning and volcano ignitions. Yet, despite the human species’ long-held appreciation of this flammability, the global scope of fire has been revealed only recently by satellite observations available beginning in the 1980s.”

They note, however, that satellites cannot adequately capture fire activity in ecosystems with very long fire intervals, or those with highly variable fire activity.

Jennifer Balch, a member of the research team and a postdoctoral fellow at NCEAS, explains that there are bigger and more frequent fires from the western U.S. to the tropics. There are “fires where we don’t normally see fires,” she said, noting that it is in the humid tropics that a lot of deforestation fires are occurring, usually to expand agriculture or cattle ranching. “Wet rainforests have not historically experienced fires at the frequency that they are today. During extreme droughts, such as in 97-98, Amazon wildfires burned through 39,000 square kilometers of forest.”

Balch explains the importance of the article: “This synthesis is a prerequisite for adaptation to the apparent recent intensification of fire feedbacks, which have been exacerbated by climate change, rapid land cover transformation, and exotic species introductions–that collectively challenge the integrity of entire biomes.”

The authors acknowledge that their estimate of fire’s influence on climate is just a start, and they highlight major research gaps that must be addressed in order to understand the complete contribution of fire to the climate system.

Balch notes that a holistic fire science is necessary, and points out fire’s true importance. “We don’t think about fires correctly,” she said. “Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere.”

“The large and diverse group of authors on this paper typifies an increasing trend across many sciences,” said Henry Gholz, an NSF program director. “NSF explicitly supports this by funding “synthesis centers,” such as NCEAS and KITP. Instead of focusing on generating new data, these centers synthesize the results of literally thousands of completed research projects into new results, theories and insights. The conclusions of this paper–that fire is important to the global carbon cycle and global climate, and that our ignorance about fire at this scale is vast–and could not have otherwise been obtained.”

-NSF-

NOTE:  Wildfires are a part of Mother Nature’s defense mechanism to ensure the cycle of life.  Our lifestyles, however, have transformed this natural mechanism into a full-scale anthropogenic catastrophe.

Related Links:

• Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?
• Nature’s Defense Mechanisms
• Thought for the Day: Reoccurrences of Natural Phenomena
• Nature Must Be Punished, Look at the Mess in California!

Is 350 ppm Safe? Hell, NO!

Folks, don’t be fooled by the hype: 350 ppmv NOT safe!

1. There is a 30-year time lag between the release of CO2e greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and the cumulative impact of heat-trapping mechanism taking effect.
2. The positive feedback system whose impacts we are now witnessing started when the atmospheric CO2 concentration rose above the 330 ppmv in the mid 1970s.
3. Any concentration level above the 330 ppm is clearly unsafe. To stabilize at levels below 330 ppm, we must aim for much lower levels of about 260-270 ppm.

Average air bubble CO₂ concentration versus age in three ice cores taken close to the summit of Law Dome at 67�S, 113�E, around 1390 m elevation. Law Dome is near the Australian Antarctic station Casey. (Source)

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The red curve shows the average monthly concentrations; blue curve is a moving 12 month average. GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation. [Credit User Superm401via Wikimedia]

Related Links:

• 350 or 450 ppm? Neither, Actually!

• Greenland Ice Melt Faster Than IPCC Estimates
• Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming
• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”
• UN Hypocrisy: Kick the CO2 Habit!
• The myth of keeping CO2 under 450ppm

Drunken Forest

The Big Arctic Thaw

The fast melting Arctic sea ice will cause inland temperatures to rise, according to a new study, releasing more greenhouse gases in Alaska, Canada and Russia, and more severely affecting the ecosystems
The Arctic sea ice shrank to 30 percent below its annual retreat levels and another record melt is forecast for 2008.

Siberians call this a “drunken forest.” Permafrost (long-frozen soil) in its natural state holds the trees upright. If permafrost melts, as in the photo, the soil becomes loose and can no longer provide a solid foundation for the trees, which tip over and lean randomly. NASA Photo. Kochechum River, Evenkiyskiy Avtonomnyy Okrug, Russia; 66°20’N 99°00’E

As we traveled down river, I saw what the Siberians call a “drunken forest”. This area is permafrost, where the soil stays firmly frozen year round. Larch grows well here, but their roots are shallow. When permafrost melts, the trees lose their footing and tilt to the side. I guess the trees look like a drunk trying to walk home, tilted at crazy angles. It is a curious sight, but it is also a clear sign that the temperature in that spot has been warm enough to melt the permafrost. — Weblog of Dr. Jon Ranson in Siberia.

“Our climate model suggests that rapid ice loss is not necessarily a surprise,” said David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the study authors.

“When you get certain conditions in the Arctic—thin ice, a lot of first-year ice (as opposed to older, sturdier ice)—that you can get a situation where … you get a rapid and steady loss over a period of five to 10 years,” Lawrence said.

In a period of rapid ice loss, autumn temperatures on the Arctic coasts of Alaska, Canada and Russia could rise by about 5 °C, the study’s climate model revealed.

Last year’s temperatures from August to October over land in the western Arctic were In the unusually warm autumn of 2007 the western Arctic temperatures rose by about 2 °C above the average recorded temperatures for the previous 28 years. As the sea ice melted rapidly, the scientists discovered, Arctic land warmed three and a half times faster than the rate predicted by most climate models. Simulations show that the warmer ocean temperatures can affect inland areas as far as 1,500km away.

Where permafrost is already at risk, for example, in central Alaska, warmer ocean temperatures are causing a quicker permafrost thaw. Thawed clumps of permafrost soil are already collapsing in parts of Alaska causing highways to buckle, houses to tilt and trees to tip over at random angles [a phenomenon which Siberians call “drunken forests.”]

“There’s an interconnectedness about the Arctic,” Lawrence said. “When sea ice retreats and retreats very rapidly it impacts other parts of the system, like warming temperatures over land. And warming temperatures over land can also accelerate the degradation of permafrost, particularly permafrost that’s warm right now.”

Related Blog Posts:

• Soot, black icebergs and Arctic ice
• Arctic Sea Ice is Unusually Thin Entering the Melt Season
• Cracks found in Arctic Ice Shelf

Related Web News:

• Melting Arctic ice could spur inland warming: study
• Science Blog – Expedition to Siberia, August 1, 2007
• Walrus – Climate Change – Sea Ice Melting
• Inside the Arctic Meltdown

Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”

Government “expert” says he underestimated threat

LONDON (Reuters) – Climate change expert Nicholas Stern says he under-estimated the threat from global warming in a major report 18 months ago when he compared the economic risk to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Full Report

Oh, really?

Northern Spotted Owl. Credit SPUI

What’s the connection between climate change spinners, the government “experts”, Nicholas Stern, Chomskette and costly “mistakes?” Asked the Northern Spotted Owl.

The brief discussion that follows may shed some light on the answer. It started when  Founder of The Management School of Restorative Business [HS] made the following comment posted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naspir/message/2379 [Caution: NASPIR could be an element in the UK Government’s covert operations.]

[Mon Dec 4, 2006 1:56 am] –

[HS] The Stern Report: Playing Politics with Ecology – Spin the Tailspin

The Stern report, Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, asserts:

“The risks of the worst impacts of climate change can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere can be stabilised between 450 and 550ppm CO2.”

The opening salvo of environmental calamities, sparked about 30 years ago at levels of 330ppm CO2, has now begun to engulf humanity. Just how the report authors can presume an additional 28 percent increase in the CO2 pollution in the atmosphere [up on the current levels of 430ppm CO2] would create any semblance of stability is a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion. [Emphasis added.]

[Mon Dec 4, 2006 7:36 am] –
A reply by Mr Milan Rai, biographer of Noam Chomsky and co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness UK: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naspir/message/2380

Hi folks

It seems to me that we should distinguish between

1) whether this is a reasonable statement, on the facts
and
2) whether this is a reasonable goal.

> The Stern report, Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,
> asserts:
>
> “The risks of the worst impacts of climate change can be substantially
> reduced if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere can be stabilised
> between 450 and 550ppm CO2.”

1) This talks about the ‘worst impacts’ being less likely if greenhouse
gas levels can be stabilised at a level somewhat higher than we have now.
I can’t see how this is an unreasonable statement, given that the ‘worst
impacts’ would clearly be the result of unstabilised greenhouse gas levels
increasing to even higher levels.

2) Is it a reasonable goal to set this greenhouse gas level as the target?
That’s the real debate.

Best wishes

Mil

[Tue Dec 5, 2006 8:15 am]
[HS] Replied http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naspir/message/2381

Hello Milan

Syntax or semantics?

Tried the statement with 600ppm (instead of 550ppm), it read like Curry’s paradox (e.g., the statement must be true, since Santa exists.)

Then tried 650ppm, it turned into the liar’s paradox (e.g., the unstoppable positive feedback was triggered at much lower pollution levels. The unstoppable positive feedback can be stabilized [sic] at much higher pollution levels).

[REM: Average knowledge of ecology and feedback systems would be required—and the authors bank on the lack thereof—to realize the ramification of what happens to the system itself.]

Now let us try 700ppm. It turns to the fallacy of the beard (paradox of the heap or continuum fallacy) – if 300ppm is a safe level, then 400ppm is just 33percent higher, and 500ppm is a natural extension to 400ppm ad infinitum.

Take another shot at it, this time as dark humor. Does it not look like Bobby Henderson’s Flying Spaghetti Monster reasoning (reductio ad absurdum) vying for scientific legitimacy?

Interestingly, the syntax remains [deceptively] reasonable throughout!

Imagine being told about the advantages of drowning in shallower waters, while your benefactors [sic] are recommending measures to control drowning in deeper waters, [and shining a green light at the oil industry to keep on pumping out, and the airline and automobile industry to keep on clocking up those uncovered miles…]

Best wishes

~~~

Related Links:

• The Great Ice age of 2008 is finally over
• Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming

• Human Impact
• Emerging Trends
• First Wave of Collapsing Cities