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Warming could worsen wildfire, air pollution in western U.S.
July 28th, 2009, 2:32 pm · 8 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
Even moderate global warming could mean a 50 percent increase in land burned by wildfire in the American West — bringing with it a worsening of air quality, a new study says. 
The heaviest hit would be the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains, although Southern California, including Orange County, also could see a significant increase in fire frequency by 2055, according to the study led by Jennifer Logan of Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
“Other people have done work on what might happen with fires in the Southwest,” Logan said. “They haven’t taken the step we took to look at the effects on air.”
The scientists used long-term data on areas burned by wildfire in the western U.S. from 1980 to 2000. They matched the data to weather conditions, then used a computer climate model to project trends in wildfire burning into the future.
The model assumed a moderate global-warming scenario, with rapid economic growth and a balance between fossil and alternative fuels that leads to a 3-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature by 2050.
The scientists also used an atmospheric chemistry model to learn how fires would alter air quality.
One kind of smoke particle called an organic carbon aerosol was predicted to increase by 40 percent on average over the next half century, the study said.
The report, “Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States,” was published on the Web by the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, published by the American Geophysical Union.
Logan said she hopes to focus future work on the Southwestern U.S., including Southern California.
While modeling of regional climate effects can vary, Michael Prather, Earth System Science professor at UC Irvine, says the study does a good job of laying out the factors that could lead to the kinds of changes described.
“The key issue is that climate models predicting regional climate are not very good yet,” he said. “They don’t agree. All this has uncertainties, but the causal chain they do is very nice — it’s the best we’ve got.”
(Graphic, courtesy Harvard University, shows expected wildfire increase by 2050 by percentage, during May-October wildfire season, under climate scenario with 3-degree rise in temperature.)
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“could mean” “could see” “might happen” “assumed” “not very good yet” “uncertainties”. Yup, sounds like the debate is over.
global warming is a farce.
Global warming … or, I mean, “climate change” is a hoax, a fraud. It’s called “seasons” and just like seasons in a year there are larger seasons. We are actually entering a cooling period. Few bushing the global warming agenda care, though, because that wouldn’t support their fear-mongering, their carbon taxes, or their power-grabbing.
People are so fickle, when it is hot, then global warming is real. But when it is cold and freezing it becomes “climate change”. Same agenda, different clothing to fool people. There are HUGE environmental problems that need to be addressed. This is not one of them. It is more about power-grabbing and control. Go “source” watching on people and you’ll see. Al Gore, for example, a big fear-mongerer, owns shares in oil businesses and carbon credit training. Conflict of interest? Where are his interests?
And if the cooling creates more moisture, and more tinder for wildfires, this will be viewed as “conclusive” evidence of “climate change.” Folks, the climate is always changing with or without our help. PS – If we’re the cause of climate change, which corporation was to blame for the last ice age?
Something that doesn’t exist is to blame for something that hasn’t happened…
While all the earlier comments complained about global warming/climate change being a hoax, I’d like to take the opposite side: The Goracle tells us that, due to “climate change” sea levels will rise 30 feet. Seems there will be less land to burn, but this article doesn’t consider that at all. Time to go back to Tennessee for an update?
“Climate change models” have been used for years to predict what next year’s weather will be like. They are usually wrong so they must be constantly adjusted when predictions go awry.
As far as warming, the Victor Valley (high desert) has seen more considerable and sometimes record breaking snowfall over the past few years.
John, this is PROOF POSITIVE of global warmi er a climate change.