Climate change will bring more Alaskan wildfires, study says
Researchers at the University of Montana recently studied climate changes in Alaska and analyzed how these changes could potentially impact the likelihood of wildfires occurring in the state in the near future.
The conclusion: climate change is producing an environment in Alaska — most notably a warmer, drier climate — that largely increases the probability of wildfires occurring in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra.
According to the paper titled Climatic thresholds shape northern high-latitude fire regimes and imply vulnerability to future climate change, climate change is melting glaciers, causing a reduction in sea ice, increasing wildlife activity, and introducing a warmer, drier climate in the Northern Hemisphere, Alaska included. And these changes are collectively increasing the likelihood that devastating wildfires will burn the state in coming years.
Wildfires will be four times as likely to occur
More specifically, the researchers said that Alaskan wildfires will be four times as likely to occur by the end of the century. Additionally, the scientists warned that both tundra and forest-tundra boundary, two land types that have not burned often in the past, could be hit especially hard by the temperature and moisture differences.
“We looked at the location of wildfires across Alaska during the past 60 years and, not surprisingly, found that they were most common in regions with warm, dry summers. The more interesting result of our work is the emergence of a distinct temperature threshold that separates areas that have and have not burned in recent decades. Above this threshold, we see a sharp increase in the likelihood that a fire will occur in a region.” — [link url=”http://news.umt.edu/2016/05/050516tund.aspx” title=”Adam Young“], University of Montana affiliate scientist
Distinct temperature threshold
Young, along with University of Montana fire ecology Associate Professor Philip Higuera, studied wildfires in Alaska from the past six decades from by utilizing a database of fire history that has been maintained by the federal government since 1950. They discovered a “temperature threshold” that, when crossed, greatly increased a region’s vulnerability to fire.
Now, with climate change drying regions out and contributing to higher temperatures, more of Alaska’s boreal forests and tundra will now be susceptible to wildfires in the coming years.
https://twitter.com/scienmag/status/730114094745960449
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