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Vast majority of California’s forests are fossils. If you burn them they don’t grow back, you get something else. Climate change is reducing the length of the r

by romed 8y ago

Vast majority of California’s forests are fossils. If you burn them they don’t grow back, you get something else. Climate change is reducing the length of the rainy season, worsening summer droughts, expanding the range of bark beetles, and moving snow lines uphill. Under these conditions our existing forests can survive but not become established. You discuss this issue as if there is some steady-state solution that can be applied. This is not the case. The climate is in now in transition from one state to another, much warmer and drier state. Controlled burns are difficult or impossible to apply under such a transition, with the number of dead standing trees (hundreds of millions in California) and the unprecedented soil moisture levels and evaporative load.

Amezarak 8y ago
First of all, California already expects to (insufficiently) increase their insufficiently small number of prescribed burns. https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/progdev/pubeduc/pbfs.pdf https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/progdev/pubeduc/pbfs.pdf Secondly, if that is what you believe, then the solution is to burn now, not later. You cannot save forests already damned by climate change, and the longer you wait, the worse it will be. > Vast majority of California’s forests are fossils. If you burn them they don’t grow back, you get something else. Then how did they get there in the first place? Human-started fires have been a normal and natural part of California's ecology for thousands of years. Waiting for the weather to get even warmer and drier will just result in more forest being destroyed, more homes being burned, more people dying, because there will be fires, no matter what you do. You can choose to limit their fuel now and save some forest, or you let natural fires have more fuel and burn even hotter and wider and lose all your forest.
- danans 8y ago
  > Then how did they get there in the first place? Presumably they established themselves when climate conditions were different than today.
  - Amezarak 8y ago
    The climate conditions of today are not dramatically different from those historically. There have been many, and much longer, dry periods throughout the past few thousand years. In fact, the past century has been unusually wet. > Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years. https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-pa... Fires have similarly been a natural part of the ecology for thousands of years. What's new is not very dry conditions or fires. What's new is the California fire management over the past century or so. The biggest different climate condition isn't the weather, it's the lack of regular fires burning up fuel. Now, tons of fire-fuel has accumulated and fires burn hotter than normal. But there is no way to solve this other than by ripping off the band-aid now. If you don't, things get worse.
    - twtw 8y ago
      Another thing that is new is that the rainy season in CA is starting later, such that the winds come before the rain. Paradise is a wet place that gets quite a bit of rain - what matters is that it is coming too late. For this reason, I don't think it is very relevant that the last century has been the wettest in awhile. That said, there are likely many factors involved, and it is probably not super useful to point at one thing and ignore all the rest.
      - romed 8y ago
        Weather in the Mono basin is irrelevant to conditions in the Feather River canyon. California, it turns out, is a large state with multiple distinct climate zones. As you note, it is the length of the summer drought which is increasing. This is not even contradictory with increasing or stable annual precipitation. It just means more of the water is coming in a shorter, rainier season.
    - danans 8y ago
      > What's new is not very dry conditions or fires. What's new is the California fire management over the past century or so. Sounds like you don't accept that climate change is exacerbating these fires. As others have noted, average and historical rainfall isn't a direct indication of fire risk. London [1] has the same annual rainfall (23") as San Francisco, but they have very different fire risks. Timing of the rainfall and other weather events matters a lot more when it comes to particular events - and the ever later onset of rains in CA is a big factor. Even then, the fire management practices you point out are in part a response to increasing populations near fire-prone areas. People expect fires near their homes to be suppressed. Unless we stop building homes in such areas, or build fireproof homes, that demand isn't going to go away. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_London [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate

by romed 8y ago

Amezarak 8y ago

First of all, California already expects to (insufficiently) increase their insufficiently small number of prescribed burns. https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/progdev/pubeduc/pbfs.pdf https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/progdev/pubeduc/pbfs.pdf Secondly, if that is what you believe, then the solution is to burn now, not later. You cannot save forests already damned by climate change, and the longer you wait, the worse it will be. > Vast majority of California’s forests are fossils. If you burn them they don’t grow back, you get something else. Then how did they get there in the first place? Human-started fires have been a normal and natural part of California's ecology for thousands of years. Waiting for the weather to get even warmer and drier will just result in more forest being destroyed, more homes being burned, more people dying, because there will be fires, no matter what you do. You can choose to limit their fuel now and save some forest, or you let natural fires have more fuel and burn even hotter and wider and lose all your forest.

danans 8y ago
> Then how did they get there in the first place? Presumably they established themselves when climate conditions were different than today.
- Amezarak 8y ago
  The climate conditions of today are not dramatically different from those historically. There have been many, and much longer, dry periods throughout the past few thousand years. In fact, the past century has been unusually wet. > Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years. https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-pa... Fires have similarly been a natural part of the ecology for thousands of years. What's new is not very dry conditions or fires. What's new is the California fire management over the past century or so. The biggest different climate condition isn't the weather, it's the lack of regular fires burning up fuel. Now, tons of fire-fuel has accumulated and fires burn hotter than normal. But there is no way to solve this other than by ripping off the band-aid now. If you don't, things get worse.
  - twtw 8y ago
    Another thing that is new is that the rainy season in CA is starting later, such that the winds come before the rain. Paradise is a wet place that gets quite a bit of rain - what matters is that it is coming too late. For this reason, I don't think it is very relevant that the last century has been the wettest in awhile. That said, there are likely many factors involved, and it is probably not super useful to point at one thing and ignore all the rest.
    - romed 8y ago
      Weather in the Mono basin is irrelevant to conditions in the Feather River canyon. California, it turns out, is a large state with multiple distinct climate zones. As you note, it is the length of the summer drought which is increasing. This is not even contradictory with increasing or stable annual precipitation. It just means more of the water is coming in a shorter, rainier season.
  - danans 8y ago
    > What's new is not very dry conditions or fires. What's new is the California fire management over the past century or so. Sounds like you don't accept that climate change is exacerbating these fires. As others have noted, average and historical rainfall isn't a direct indication of fire risk. London [1] has the same annual rainfall (23") as San Francisco, but they have very different fire risks. Timing of the rainfall and other weather events matters a lot more when it comes to particular events - and the ever later onset of rains in CA is a big factor. Even then, the fire management practices you point out are in part a response to increasing populations near fire-prone areas. People expect fires near their homes to be suppressed. Unless we stop building homes in such areas, or build fireproof homes, that demand isn't going to go away. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_London [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate