Amazing Nature: of bark beetles, climate change and wildfires.

Luther12

Elder Lister
Came across this yesterday while watching a feature on DW Tv (viva FTA Satellite Tv). Indulge:

When the Creek Fire exploded to 160,000 acres in just 72 hours, ripping through a jewel of the Sierra Nevada just south of Yosemite National Park, California and the world looked on in horror and surprise.

But the stage had long been set for the megablaze, one of a half-dozen transforming millions of acres of Golden State landscapes to ash. Droughts supercharged by climate change dried out vegetation, aiding its transition into fuel. And as observers ranging from foresters to Californians living in the wildland urban interface predicted, the state's zealous, century-long fight to suppress fires meant this flammable concoction grew to unstable levels.

"This is a situation many of us have been dreading over the past five years," said Chris Dicus, a professor of wildland fire and fuels management at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. "All it would take is a single spark to ignite these trees, and that's what we saw happen."

Droughts also exacerbated another variable that has devastated Western forests: the bark beetle. Although native to the region, the beetle wreaks havoc under the wrong conditions, including droughts. According to statistics from firefighting officials, between 80% and 90% of the Creek Fire's fuel — a full 2,000 tons per acre — came from beetle-killed timber.









 
Climate change is one area that always gets me confused, the continual warming of the planet will basically result in increased precipitation, more of rain than maybe snow, but how does that lead to drought and forest fires that are out of control. Also from a point of 'Kagwe like immunization' ignorance, how come those beetles dont do damage to forests in the tropics, where the high temperatures would be more than ideal.

Maybe its just that we have encroached forests so much such that normal damage/fires are more noticeable and devastating than in the past.
 
Climate change is one area that always gets me confused, the continual warming of the planet will basically result in increased precipitation, more of rain than maybe snow, but how does that lead to drought and forest fires that are out of control. Also from a point of 'Kagwe like immunization' ignorance, how come those beetles dont do damage to forests in the tropics, where the high temperatures would be more than ideal.

Maybe its just that we have encroached forests so much such that normal damage/fires are more noticeable and devastating than in the past.


They often say that what's happening in California with respect to matters climate change is like a postcard to the rest of America - and the world - showing what to expect if we do not institute mitigating measures.

As far as precipitation goes, there's sth we used to call the hydrological cycle in high school Geography.
Perhaps one aspect that's not mentioned as much as it should is the issue of disease spread due to changing climate.
 
how come those beetles dont do damage to forests in the tropics


Somewhere in this video is mentioned a type of beetle that actually requires the forest to burn in order to thrive.



 
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