Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumUnder a warming climate, Washington’s forests will lose stored carbon as area burned by wildfire...
(Please note, US Forest Service News Release - Copyright concerns are nil.)
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/news/2012/07/warming-climate.shtml
[font size=4]Even small increases in area burned could have significant impacts on carbon storage[/font]
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
Portland, OR: July 23, 2012
Contacts: Crystal Raymond, (206) 732-7809, craymond@fs.fed.us
Media contact: Yasmeen Sands, (360) 753-7716, ysands@fs.fed.us
[font size=3]PORTLAND, Ore. July 23, 2012. Forests in the Pacific Northwest store more carbon than any other region in the United States, but our warming climate may undermine their storage potential.
A new study conducted by the U.S. Forest Services Pacific Northwest Research Station and the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington has found that, by 2040, parts of Washington State could lose as much as a third of their carbon stores, as an increasing area of the states forests is projected to be burned by wildfire. The studypublished in the July 2012 issue of the journal Ecological Applicationsis the first to use statistical models and publicly available Forest Inventory and Analysis data to estimate the effects of a warming climate on carbon storage and fluxes on Washingtons forests.
When considering the use of forests to store carbon, it will be critical to consider the increasing risk of wildfire, said Crystal Raymond, a research biologist based at the stations Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory and lead author of the study. Especially in the West, where climate-induced changes in fire are expected to be a key agent of change.
Trees remove and sequester carbon from the atmosphere, in the form of carbon dioxide, acting as important stores, or sinks, of carbon that help to offset its accumulation in the atmosphere. When trees and other woody material in the forest are burned by fire, they release carbon back to the atmosphere, mostly as carbon dioxide, where it may once again act as a greenhouse gas that promotes warming. This land-atmosphere exchange of carbon is increasingly of interest to land managers seeking ways to actively manage forests to store carbon and help mitigate greenhouse gases.
To explore what effect climate-driven changes in wildfire might have on the ability of Washingtons forests to act as carbon sinks, Raymond and station research ecologist Don McKenzie used a novel approach. They combined published forest-inventory data, fire-history data, and statistical models of area burned to estimate historical and future carbon carrying capacity of three regions in Washingtonthe Western Cascades, the Eastern Cascades, and the Okanogan Highlandsbased on potential forest productivity and projections of 21st century area burned.
Forests on both the eastern and western slopes of the Cascade Range will lose carbon stored in live biomass because area burned across the state is expected to increase, Raymond said. Even small increases in area burned can have large consequences for carbon stored in living and dead biomass.
The researchers looked at live biomass, which includes living trees and vegetation, as well as nonliving biomass in the form of coarse woody debris, which includes dead standing trees and downed logs. Both contribute to the carbon cycle, but in different waysliving biomass removes carbon from the atmosphere as vegetation grows, and coarse woody debris releases carbon over time as the material decomposes.
Raymond and McKenzie projected forests of the Western Cascades to be most sensitive to climate-driven increases in fire, losing anywhere from 24 to 37 percent of their live biomass and from 15 to 25 percent of their coarse woody debris biomass by 2040. These forests store significant carbon and typically burn with high severity, killing many trees and consuming coarse woody debris.
On the other side of the mountains, the researchers also projected a decrease in live biomass by 2040of anywhere between 17 and 26 percent in the Eastern Cascades and in the Okanogan Highlandsbut no change in coarse woody debris biomass, or possibly even an increase, because coarse woody debris biomass increases as trees are killed by fire and subsequent low-severity fires burn only a small portion of it.
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To read more about the study, visit http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/11-1851.1[/font][/font]
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)and we already lost our home to a wildfire in 1994. One of the first in the new area of out-of-control fires with cyclonic fire behavior. Real fun. Not looking forward to this.
And by the way, the bug-kill lodgepole and other species make for a very eerie look to the forests here - looks like they are about to (need to) combust.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Around here, it's unprecedented flooding...
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)it's sickening.
I have my own much disputed theory that the flooding represents the melting ice caps! We shall see.
This sucks.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Its really more to do with warming (which is also melting the ice caps.)
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)I.e.: as ice melts (caps, Greenland, wherever) it simply puts more water into the ecosystem overall, ergo, flooding, wherever? I'm clearly not a scientist!
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)I think it comes down to this; warmer air:
- Evaporates more water (note that this can also make droughts worse.)
- Holds more water
When conditions lead to the air letting go of that water (rain) there is more water to fall.
I don't think the increased amount of melt water has that much to do with it.
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)veddy interesting!
pscot
(21,024 posts)the Great Warming will have on the Pacific Northwest. We could be getting a lot more rain.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...at least those guys seem to have handle on reality..