Above graph: Predicted drought intensity using an index based on tree ring data from Southwestern forests.
We are currently experiencing a previously predicted upswing in average rainfall (blue arrow).
The next downdraft is predicted to take us into persistent megadrought conditions by 2050, due to human-caused climate change. From Williams et al. 2012.
Climate Change is Drying California's Landscapes = More Fires. It's not about past fire suppression impacts
A significant number of papers that have done an excellent job parsing out the role of “fuels” (habitat) and climate. A growing number of researchers have demonstrated that vapor pressure deficit (VPD – the amount of moisture in the air vs. how much moisture the air can hold) is the predominate variable driving wildfire activity (Williams et. al 2019, and Chen et. al 2021). A dramatic increase in VPD has been documented across the entire western US (Seager et. al 2015, Chiodi et. al 2021, Ficklin and Novick 2017, and Abatzoglou and Williams 2016).
The 2016 Abatzoglou and Williams paper is an especially good one to read. Unfortunately, their predictions were conservative. Things have become much worse. Here's an excellent article that explains VPD in The Atlantic magazine.
The graphs below provide the stark relationship between climate change via VPD and fire activity in forested ecosystems. VPD is a much better measurement of climate impacts on fire activity than others, like the Palmer Drought Index, because it reveals a variable that directly influences the environment's flammability, rather past drought conditions which can have various impacts.
The 2016 Abatzoglou and Williams paper is an especially good one to read. Unfortunately, their predictions were conservative. Things have become much worse. Here's an excellent article that explains VPD in The Atlantic magazine.
The graphs below provide the stark relationship between climate change via VPD and fire activity in forested ecosystems. VPD is a much better measurement of climate impacts on fire activity than others, like the Palmer Drought Index, because it reveals a variable that directly influences the environment's flammability, rather past drought conditions which can have various impacts.
Vapor Pressure Deficit Graphs. Left graph shows the observed mean (black line) of how the VPD has changed over the past century. The red line is based on climate model predictions. From Williams et al. 2019. The right graph show the correlation between the VPD and acres burned
in southwestern forests in the US. From Seager et al. 2015. All references linked above.
Drier landscapes are more flammable - hence, larger, more frequent fires. It’s as simple as that.
Some claim the the relationship between climate, habitat condition, and wildfire is complex. The consequence of equivocating like this ends up lending support to environmentally destructive logging/clearance policies, i.e. removing habitat in an attempt to reduce wildfire risk.
As we have learned in southern California, the amount of vegetation, past fire suppression impacts, the number of “fuel” treatments, etc., are generally irrelevant in controlling fire spread under extreme fire conditions. It’s high VPD levels, low humidity, dry vegetation, high temps, strong winds and/or the associated ember-cast from fires that determine large wildfire activity. Recent wildfires in northern California are reflecting this.
For example, during the 2021 Dixie Fire in northern California, there was a ember-generated spot fire that ignited about 7-8 miles ahead of the main fire front on the fire’s eastern front (on approximately August 16/17). The embers flew over huge “fuel” treatment projects. After igniting, the spot fire even burned back through the "fuel" reduction area that it had originally jumped. An additional 30,000 acres were burned. This didn’t occur because some magical “fuel accumulation” threshold was suddenly crossed or because of a lack of fire history in the area. It was directly related to a drying landscape and other conditions created by human-caused climate change.
Therefore, the traditional view that large forest fires are normally “fuel” driven, while large chaparral fires are mostly weather driven, no longer accurately describes California’s fire environment. Nearly all large fires now appear to be more about climate change than anything else.
Of course, “fuels” and past fire history are relevant issues in the Dixie and other fires, but such variables do not come close to revealing the full story.
As can be seen in the map below, nearly all of the areas within the Dixie Fire without a fire history had been drastically altered by logging/thinning/habitat clearance projects. The full story is about how the natural landscape has been compromised and damaged by extraction industries (i.e. logging), and how the “fuel” characteristics have been altered by such actions.
As we have learned in southern California, the amount of vegetation, past fire suppression impacts, the number of “fuel” treatments, etc., are generally irrelevant in controlling fire spread under extreme fire conditions. It’s high VPD levels, low humidity, dry vegetation, high temps, strong winds and/or the associated ember-cast from fires that determine large wildfire activity. Recent wildfires in northern California are reflecting this.
For example, during the 2021 Dixie Fire in northern California, there was a ember-generated spot fire that ignited about 7-8 miles ahead of the main fire front on the fire’s eastern front (on approximately August 16/17). The embers flew over huge “fuel” treatment projects. After igniting, the spot fire even burned back through the "fuel" reduction area that it had originally jumped. An additional 30,000 acres were burned. This didn’t occur because some magical “fuel accumulation” threshold was suddenly crossed or because of a lack of fire history in the area. It was directly related to a drying landscape and other conditions created by human-caused climate change.
Therefore, the traditional view that large forest fires are normally “fuel” driven, while large chaparral fires are mostly weather driven, no longer accurately describes California’s fire environment. Nearly all large fires now appear to be more about climate change than anything else.
Of course, “fuels” and past fire history are relevant issues in the Dixie and other fires, but such variables do not come close to revealing the full story.
As can be seen in the map below, nearly all of the areas within the Dixie Fire without a fire history had been drastically altered by logging/thinning/habitat clearance projects. The full story is about how the natural landscape has been compromised and damaged by extraction industries (i.e. logging), and how the “fuel” characteristics have been altered by such actions.
The 2021 Dixie Fire in northern California. Notice how much of the forested landscape had been abused by timber extraction and thinning projects (orange), none of which made a difference in stopping the spread of the fire. Map source: Bryant Baker.
The Dixie Fire should have provided support for the current fuel-centric paradigm (it's the habitat's fault) and the currently preferred approach to wildfire risk reduction – treating a portion of the landscape with “fuel” reduction projects, based on the assumption that such an approach will allow us to either stop or control wildfires.
It didn't. The Dixie Fire demonstrated the exact opposite.
As revealed in the map above, much of the Dixie Fire burned through thousands of acres of previously thinned, logged forest (i.e. “fuel” treatments) without stopping. The same can be said for California's 2021 Bootleg Fire and Caldor Fire, and the 2020 North Complex Fire. The 2018 Camp Fire burned through a 30,000 acre landscape that had burned ten years earlier, much of which had been salvaged logged, before its embers took out the town of Paradise.
So, fire history, past fire suppression, or “fuel” accumulations are not the most relevant variables determining wildfire spread in our rapidly changing climate. The evidence for this is becoming increasingly clear with each large wildfire. The real problem we face is a century of Nature suppression combined with still increasing levels of carbon that we’re dumping into the atmosphere.
Much of what we are seeing in northern California is very similar to what we have been seeing in the southern part of the state for the past couple decades. Southern California is heading north as the climate continues to dry.
In developing policy to address these issues, we need to look through the windshield of the future, rather than staying fixed on the rear-view mirror, or worse, defending older hypotheses that are no longer valid in the era of climate change.
We sent a letter to California's Natural Resources Agency addressing these facts in our comments on the latest attempt to justify the clearance and burning of chaparral - the state's 10/2021 Natural and Working Lands Climate Strategy draft. Our comments.
Contributing to Climate Change Under the Guise of Fire Protection
The growing consensus of scientific findings is that, to effectively mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, we must not only move beyond fossil fuel consumption but must also substantially increase protection of our native shrublands and forests in order to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere and store more, not less, carbon in our forests.
Contrary to the claims of Cal Fire, the US Forest Service, commerical logging interests, and some misguided environmental organizations, there is no scientific evidence to support increased logging to store more carbon in wood products as a natural climate solution.
Furthermore, the scientific evidence does not support the burning of wood (biomass) in place of fossil fuels as a climate solution.
Therefore, we urge Cal Fire and land management agencies to stop grinding up chaparral and clearing habitat under the guise of fire protection and the false assumption that such action will prevent large wildfires. Instead, use the best available science to focus on what matters most for communities - reducing fire risk within communities themselves.
We urge Congress and state legislatures to oppose legislative proposals that would promote logging and wood consumption, ostensibly as a natural climate change solution, based on claims that these represent an effective carbon storage approach, or claims that biomass logging, and incinerating trees and shrubs for energy, represents renewable, carbon-neutral energy. These proposals are based on selfish, financial interests, not on securing a healthier environment for all of us.
Download the full letter to Congress on this subject, with hundreds of scientist signatories, here.
The Impact of Climate Change on
Mediterranean-type climate ecosystems
1. Loss of chaparral. As the climate changes due to the burning of fossil fuels, the environment in which chaparral thrives will be radically altered. Look at the map above. The red areas represent where chaparral exists today, but will likely be replaced by weeds within the next century if we continue to alter the climate. Therefore, the clearance and burning of habitat under the guise of fire protection is not only irresponsible, but it also contributes to the Climate Crisis (destroying carbon sequestering habitat).
The destruction of habitat is exactly the approach California Governor Newsom has endorsed and Cal Fire is trying to implement.
Please see "A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of California's Terrestrial Vegetation" (Thorne et al. 2016) for further details.
2. Native habitats at risk. "At current rates of emissions, about 45-56 percent of all the natural vegetation in the state is at risk, or from 61,190 to 75,866 square miles," said lead author James Thorne, a research scientist with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis. "If we reduce the rate to Paris accord targets, those numbers are lowered to between 21 and 28 percent of the lands at climatic risk."To read more, please see the 2018 research summary here.You can also download the full paper.
3. Southern California is moving north. "One consequence of climate disturbance in California will be a shift of biodiversity to the north (Loarie et al. 2008). Scientists from the US Geological Survey developed the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) to assess the physical vulnerability of the California coast. They found that from San Luis Obispo to the Mexico border, communities along this coastline have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change (McGinnis et al. 2009; National Park Service 2004; Stein et al. 2000)." - Dr. Michael McGinnis: Read More.
The destruction of habitat is exactly the approach California Governor Newsom has endorsed and Cal Fire is trying to implement.
Please see "A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of California's Terrestrial Vegetation" (Thorne et al. 2016) for further details.
2. Native habitats at risk. "At current rates of emissions, about 45-56 percent of all the natural vegetation in the state is at risk, or from 61,190 to 75,866 square miles," said lead author James Thorne, a research scientist with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis. "If we reduce the rate to Paris accord targets, those numbers are lowered to between 21 and 28 percent of the lands at climatic risk."To read more, please see the 2018 research summary here.You can also download the full paper.
3. Southern California is moving north. "One consequence of climate disturbance in California will be a shift of biodiversity to the north (Loarie et al. 2008). Scientists from the US Geological Survey developed the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) to assess the physical vulnerability of the California coast. They found that from San Luis Obispo to the Mexico border, communities along this coastline have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change (McGinnis et al. 2009; National Park Service 2004; Stein et al. 2000)." - Dr. Michael McGinnis: Read More.
Under a future high emissions/hot and dry climate scenario for the time period 2070 - 2099, much of the area currently occupied by chaparral will no longer be suitable for that plant community (shown in red). The likely replacement will be highly flammable, non-native weeds.
From Thorne et al. 2016.
Take personal action to help reverse this civilization killing behavior
Action You Can Take Now
1. Take direct action by participating in Climate Crisis protests. Find out where they are here: FridaysForFuture.
2. Join/Help organizations that are helping to mobilize the world for change such as:
Earth Guardians Scientists Warning
Extinction Rebellion 3. Make personal changes to reduce the amount of carbon you add to the atmosphere. For example:
- Reduce or eliminate beef from your diet.- Alter your transportation habits to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.- Help others understand the impact of the Climate Crisis (connect emotionally).- Vote for leaders who acknowledge the Climate Crisis and support change.- Support companies who are reducing their carbon emissions (vote with your wallet).- Replace screen time with socializing, creating, learning, art, hiking, gardening, loving.- Install solar panels if you own a home and can afford it.
2. Join/Help organizations that are helping to mobilize the world for change such as:
Earth Guardians Scientists Warning
Extinction Rebellion 3. Make personal changes to reduce the amount of carbon you add to the atmosphere. For example:
- Reduce or eliminate beef from your diet.- Alter your transportation habits to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.- Help others understand the impact of the Climate Crisis (connect emotionally).- Vote for leaders who acknowledge the Climate Crisis and support change.- Support companies who are reducing their carbon emissions (vote with your wallet).- Replace screen time with socializing, creating, learning, art, hiking, gardening, loving.- Install solar panels if you own a home and can afford it.
A Climate Message from Dr. Jem Bendell
"Someone told me people come to Extinction Rebellion because of fear, but they stay in it because of love." , Jim Bendell.
New York Times story 12/16/2020
Dr Bendell is a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (UK). He focuses on leadership and communications for social change, as well as approaches that may help humanity face climate-induced disruption.
Dr Bendell's most widely read paper can be found here:Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating ClimateTragedy, IFLAS Occasional Paper 2, July 27th 2018, Jem Bendell BA (Hons) PhD
Dr Bendell's most widely read paper can be found here:Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating ClimateTragedy, IFLAS Occasional Paper 2, July 27th 2018, Jem Bendell BA (Hons) PhD
A Climate Change Analogy
The preeminent threat the chaparral faces, we all face,
is human-caused climate disturbance
induced by the unnatural release of carbon
from the burning of fossil fuels - stored carbon
that has been locked away for millions of years.Like adding too much sugar to a cup of coffee will make it undrinkable, adding excessive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere will radically alter the world's climate.
