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The global temperature anomaly is already out-of-range for not only the lifetime of this tree, but much of its evolutionary history. We are entering an out-of-

The global temperature anomaly is already out-of-range for not only the lifetime of this tree, but much of its evolutionary history. We are entering an out-of-context situation for a large portion of the earth's extant lifeforms.

samcheng 6y ago
Agreed. Also, these trees must now survive a hundred years of aggressive fire suppression, which (ironically) allows fuel to build up to dangerous levels. Either way, these trees are a lot safer after surviving a fire.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Again, the forest does not burn each summer. Is the job of arsonists in the majority of the times. This is a criminal problem. Is domestic terrorism Claiming that fuel is increasing and somebody should burn the forest attract lunatics and does not help to have a future with water, or to decrease the levels of CO2 in the air. We desperately require the CO2 stored in plants and in soil and this is not compatible with the old "time to burn" parties and traditions. Brazil and half of Africa is burning today and this is not acceptable. We must change our speech. Now.
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    Not sure about California in particular, but I think a pretty solid case can be made for controlled burning of environments that have evolved around regular wildfires. It's how these ecosystems work, and have worked well for a long, long time, and we risk damaging or collapsing those ecosystems if we take fire suppression too far. Besides, while having lunatics torch forests is not desirable at all, fuel accumulation isn't fictional. Again, no idea about California in particular, but it's definitely a problem in parts of Spain, and controlled burns are already a thing there, I believe that's being done in the US, too, with good success so far. I get that it's no fun having wildfires, even controlled ones, behind one's backyard, but it's probably not sustainable to not have any at all, forever. Even if fires can be suppressed effectively for a long time, when a fire eventually escapes suppression, and one probably will, it'll find many years of bone-dry plant matter to consume; that'll release all of the CO2 at once, and it would make for a very destructive firestorm. At least that's my layperson's understanding. The criminal burning of the Amazon, way beyond what any wildfires would do, that absolutely must stop.
    - jupp0r 6y ago
      In California, controlled burns are now happening all the time (although not enough).
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      Of course those ecosystems will collapse, at least in part, they are a transition point towards the ecosystem climax. In the same way as the first week of an artistic work will disappear forever under new layers of paint.
      - dividedbyzero 6y ago
        That's not an apt comparison. Painting over an artwork doesn't usually cause wide-ranging consequences apart from some human drama, destroying ecosystems frequently does. Ecosystems influence everything from erosion and flooding, micro/macroclimate, occurrence of disease vectors and pests or lack thereof, wildfire occurrence and severity, avalanche risk, and food production on a large scale. We're putting on totally artificial pressure in a very short timeframe. Will we keep things like this for millennia? Probably not. We need stable environments to thrive, this is a recipe for severe instability. Plus, whatever comes after a collapse may be really bad for us – maybe you get a desert, maybe you get a really bad avalanche situation, maybe you get new pests and disease vectors. This isn't a question of aesthetics, it's about the functioning of the environment we are deeply dependent on to exist.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Well, the thread is about fires in northern California. These particular fires were not at all started by arsonists, but by a lighting storm.
  - outworlder 6y ago
    No. The majority of fires are not started by arsonists. This time it was lightning. Two years ago, it was strong winds and power lines. There are the occasional accidents, like the case where a hot car pulled over and ignited some dry leaves. Also, a lot of California is a chaparral. It's an ecosystem shaped by wildfires. They are expected. Those locations must burn regularly, as they have been doing for thousands of years. This is completely unrelated to, say, a tropical forest. Which is not expected to have more than isolated, occasional fires.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
You're misunderstanding something here. The global temperature anomaly is substantially smaller than even day to day variations in temperature, and completely dwarfed by seasonal or day-night variations. The problems expected from climate change are almost entirely systemic - few individual lifeforms will end up in an out-of-context situation. In this specific case, a 1400 year old tree will surely have seen some wildfires before.
chrisco255 6y ago
California has been subject to century long droughts in the not too distant past (about 1000 years ago). "BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur." https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-dr... What's amazing is that many of these trees survived that. And that modern humans think modern California is "normal".
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  Further to that, the global temperature anomaly has caused rainfall patterns to change, meaning some places are trending wetter, and some drier, and crucially, volatility has increased. Having wet seasons, generating fuel load, followed by dry is more problematic than a sustained drought.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    I remember driving through the Santa Monica Mountains on my way to Malibu right after Southern California was absolutely deluged by rain for weeks. It was one of the most stunning displays I've ever seen in person. Three years later Malibu burned down. So it goes.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    This was actually part of my theory of why California electric companies got so lazy about tree and brush removal around their power lines. I don't think it's a coincidence that just 1 year after exiting a 6 year drought state power companies started huge fires in both Northern and Southern California.
    - h0l0cube 6y ago
cft 6y ago
”Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen, sometime earlier than 650 Mya (million years ago) during the Cryogenian period. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth Note that animal (multicellular eukaryotes) fossils exist from that period.
labster 6y ago
Meh, there are metasequoia fossils in Alaska, I’m pretty sure the 3 sequoia species will be winners in climate change.

samcheng 6y ago

Agreed. Also, these trees must now survive a hundred years of aggressive fire suppression, which (ironically) allows fuel to build up to dangerous levels. Either way, these trees are a lot safer after surviving a fire.

pvaldes 6y ago
Again, the forest does not burn each summer. Is the job of arsonists in the majority of the times. This is a criminal problem. Is domestic terrorism Claiming that fuel is increasing and somebody should burn the forest attract lunatics and does not help to have a future with water, or to decrease the levels of CO2 in the air. We desperately require the CO2 stored in plants and in soil and this is not compatible with the old "time to burn" parties and traditions. Brazil and half of Africa is burning today and this is not acceptable. We must change our speech. Now.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  Not sure about California in particular, but I think a pretty solid case can be made for controlled burning of environments that have evolved around regular wildfires. It's how these ecosystems work, and have worked well for a long, long time, and we risk damaging or collapsing those ecosystems if we take fire suppression too far. Besides, while having lunatics torch forests is not desirable at all, fuel accumulation isn't fictional. Again, no idea about California in particular, but it's definitely a problem in parts of Spain, and controlled burns are already a thing there, I believe that's being done in the US, too, with good success so far. I get that it's no fun having wildfires, even controlled ones, behind one's backyard, but it's probably not sustainable to not have any at all, forever. Even if fires can be suppressed effectively for a long time, when a fire eventually escapes suppression, and one probably will, it'll find many years of bone-dry plant matter to consume; that'll release all of the CO2 at once, and it would make for a very destructive firestorm. At least that's my layperson's understanding. The criminal burning of the Amazon, way beyond what any wildfires would do, that absolutely must stop.
  - jupp0r 6y ago
    In California, controlled burns are now happening all the time (although not enough).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    Of course those ecosystems will collapse, at least in part, they are a transition point towards the ecosystem climax. In the same way as the first week of an artistic work will disappear forever under new layers of paint.
    - dividedbyzero 6y ago
      That's not an apt comparison. Painting over an artwork doesn't usually cause wide-ranging consequences apart from some human drama, destroying ecosystems frequently does. Ecosystems influence everything from erosion and flooding, micro/macroclimate, occurrence of disease vectors and pests or lack thereof, wildfire occurrence and severity, avalanche risk, and food production on a large scale. We're putting on totally artificial pressure in a very short timeframe. Will we keep things like this for millennia? Probably not. We need stable environments to thrive, this is a recipe for severe instability. Plus, whatever comes after a collapse may be really bad for us – maybe you get a desert, maybe you get a really bad avalanche situation, maybe you get new pests and disease vectors. This isn't a question of aesthetics, it's about the functioning of the environment we are deeply dependent on to exist.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Well, the thread is about fires in northern California. These particular fires were not at all started by arsonists, but by a lighting storm.
- outworlder 6y ago
  No. The majority of fires are not started by arsonists. This time it was lightning. Two years ago, it was strong winds and power lines. There are the occasional accidents, like the case where a hot car pulled over and ignited some dry leaves. Also, a lot of California is a chaparral. It's an ecosystem shaped by wildfires. They are expected. Those locations must burn regularly, as they have been doing for thousands of years. This is completely unrelated to, say, a tropical forest. Which is not expected to have more than isolated, occasional fires.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

You're misunderstanding something here. The global temperature anomaly is substantially smaller than even day to day variations in temperature, and completely dwarfed by seasonal or day-night variations. The problems expected from climate change are almost entirely systemic - few individual lifeforms will end up in an out-of-context situation. In this specific case, a 1400 year old tree will surely have seen some wildfires before.

chrisco255 6y ago

California has been subject to century long droughts in the not too distant past (about 1000 years ago). "BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur." https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-dr... What's amazing is that many of these trees survived that. And that modern humans think modern California is "normal".

h0l0cube 6y ago
Further to that, the global temperature anomaly has caused rainfall patterns to change, meaning some places are trending wetter, and some drier, and crucially, volatility has increased. Having wet seasons, generating fuel load, followed by dry is more problematic than a sustained drought.
- selectodude 6y ago
  I remember driving through the Santa Monica Mountains on my way to Malibu right after Southern California was absolutely deluged by rain for weeks. It was one of the most stunning displays I've ever seen in person. Three years later Malibu burned down. So it goes.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  This was actually part of my theory of why California electric companies got so lazy about tree and brush removal around their power lines. I don't think it's a coincidence that just 1 year after exiting a 6 year drought state power companies started huge fires in both Northern and Southern California.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago

cft 6y ago

”Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen, sometime earlier than 650 Mya (million years ago) during the Cryogenian period. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth Note that animal (multicellular eukaryotes) fossils exist from that period.

labster 6y ago

Meh, there are metasequoia fossils in Alaska, I’m pretty sure the 3 sequoia species will be winners in climate change.