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Forest Fires, Air Quality, Weather Patterns, ...The World ...

Nemo

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North_Sky

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Cool, if one person enjoyed it it was worth it. Our planet is worth protecting and saving it...along with its wildlife and its inhabitants. It's like good healthy peaceful music for the soul...opera (highest emotional voices instrument) and tango (dancing music). :)
 
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North_Sky

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Nemo

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The "fun" never ends these days:

The Arctic is burning in a whole new way (yes, the Arctic, you read that well...)

"Zombie fires" and burning of fire-resistant vegetation are new features driving Arctic fires—with strong consequences for the global climate—warn international fire scientists in a commentary published in Nature Geoscience.
 
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North_Sky

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Wow, no kidding.

We, some of us Canadians, including our chief, we are putting our energy in restoring the planet's normal temperature. I know, it's no small task but we're very serious about it.
 

RayDunzl

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We, some of us Canadians, including our chief, we are putting our energy in restoring the planet's normal temperature. I know, it's no small task but we're very serious about it.

Please, no politics.

You'll incur the wrath of the Thought Police.
 
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North_Sky

North_Sky

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Nooooooooooooo, I was just saying couple degrees cooler, with rain to help our fire fighters and the Fall season contributing with it in a natural way.

 
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wgscott

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Coming up on 3 months since our local fire started with a lightning storm. It took out about 970 residences. Mine survived, but most of the rest of the houses in the region got incinerated. We spent about a month in an evacuation center, somehow dodged SARS-CoV-2.

Haven't felt like listening to music in the last few months. Biking here now kind of sucks, too. (I took this on a local ride.)

Here is how it looks around the bend:
Screen Shot 2020-11-14 at 8.34.15 PM.png
 

Wes

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Biking will be nicer in a year or two when undergrowth comes back - maybe lots of flowers like after the Yellowstone fires.

Eventually tho, that forest will be gone - maybe a different type of forest, or at some point the ecosystem will convert to chaparral.
 

Helicopter

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Centauria angustofolia, sp? Knapweed, the cornfolwer colored flower plant is a harmful invasive species that changes the soil so native plants are gone for good. Too bad you have that now. Probably from hay production and trade. I have not seen it in Alaska yet.

I don't know much about Australian forests, and I am aware of climate change, but these uncontrollable fires in the US are largely driven by poor forest management and habitat change. Average surface temps are a distant third cause.

It is disapointing we do not pay more attention to habitat change, which, over the last 50 years, has had much more alarming consequences globally. For example, I would attribute most of the extinctions, which are vast (e.g. the majority of vertebrates), to habitat change. Also, it is much more actionable than carbon. I can literally make an overt difference, just by managing my own properties responsibly, and so on.

I am willing to take action on climate change too, but Californians are not correct in attributing their problem to Chinese coal burning, etc. They should be looking at their own behaviors with land management in their state first. Fire supression, improper fuel age classes in forest stands, suburban development, above ground irrigation, etc. are the big drivers. They built communities in habitats that naturally would burn every few years and then supress fire forever, to protect the structures, and let fuel build up the whole time, on canyon walls nonetheless.
 

Wes

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you are mistaken in regarding climate change as a distant cause - what is that claim based on?
 

Helicopter

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The town is surrounded by close proximity to forests, to hot climate, to dry soil, to lightnings, to global warming. And people live where they can afford it.

Oregon is a beautiful country, with beautiful sceneries, forests aplenty, magic roads to drive, ... it's not anymore like say thirty years ago when the climate was wetter and cooler.

What can be done?
More frequent, less catastrophic fires might be a good start.
 
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Helicopter

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you are mistaken in regarding climate change as a distant cause - what is that claim based on?
Various classes at the University of Montana, Missoula. International Environmental Change, Forestry, and Natural Resource Measurements in particular. I went pretty far along the path to becoming a forest scientist before I realized I wanted to make more money.

I have been in a hunting blind in my own woods all day. These woods won't carry a fire.

What is your claim that I am mistaken based on?
 
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Wes

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my research as a scientist in climate change effects
 

Helicopter

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my research as a scientist in climate change effects
I guess it should not be too surprising that someone who studied forest management and someone who researches climate change effects disagree about which is more important to forests.
 

Helicopter

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My daughter, who turned 4 yesterday, today told me that flowers and trees were a waste of energy...

Not sure how to feel about that.
I like trees... Cattle, sheep, and goats are a waste of habitable surface of the planet, I think... though I consume products from all of them.
 

Wes

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I guess it should not be too surprising that someone who studied forest management and someone who researches climate change effects disagree about which is more important to forests.

it depends on the level of study
 

Helicopter

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it depends on the level of study
Not sure who this is supposed to impress. Unlikely you are as smart or as studied as my professors, so you are not standing out in my personal experience.

110 years of fire supression, plants growing, building fuel, every season, seems pretty obviously important. If we could roll back time, and light a few dozen fires every Spring, I don't see how we ever get to 2020 levels of fuel and adjacent stands that can carry a crown fire. Also, we had a problem with escalating fires (Yellowstone) before we saw big surface temperature changes, and we have had more time for more fuel to build up since then.

Homes and businesses on canyon walls in a forest where every stand of trees is mature enough to carry a crown fire, is madness. The sensible thing would be to clear cut some of the stands so you don't have a contiguous tinderbox.

I am not denying climate change or the fact that warmer temps and drier air make the fires worse, so no refuting my argument simply by demonstrating things we can agree on.

But sounds like you have a really high level of study. :facepalm:
 
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