Facebook
X (Twitter)
Reddit
Pinterest
Tumblr
Delicious
LinkedIn
StumbleUpon
Posts Tagged: Max Moritz
Links between extreme weather and climate change are tenuous
A steady stream of extreme weather events makes for a steady media drumbeat on climate change, but the stream can run dry, reported Richard Kerr. For example, the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season has produced just two short-lived, Category 1 hurricanes. Such mild weather can become an argument for climate skeptics.
The article opened with a quote from "a well-meaning non-scientist" who tried to use extreme weather to argue that global warming is real - President Obama.
"We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence," Obama said in his State-of-the-Union address. "Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science - and act before it's too late."
Indeed, the evidence for climate change is unequivocal, "but the science linking any one hurricane, drought or flood to climate change is shaky, at best," the article said.
For commentary on climate change and wildfires, Kerr spoke to Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley.
Moritz said it is plausible that a warming climate plays a role in fires in places like the western U.S. and Australia, but "fire is a couple steps removed from temperature and precipitation and our records are short. So detecting a trend is tough and attributing an event to climate change is really, really tough. We have to be very careful."
The Rim Fire is a treasure trove of information for fire scientists
The key question, the story said, is what happened on Aug. 22 and 23, when a 200-foot wall of flames burned almost 90,000 acres.
"Almost half of this very, very large fire happened in just two days," said Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. "If you are a scientist, that is very interesting."
Leading up to the fire, Scott Stephens, professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, was in the area of the Rim Fire with a four-person research team measuring tree diameters and densities. They found as many as 400 trees per acre on the land, compared with 60 and 90 trees per acre in 1911. There was also between 30 and 40 tons of woody debris per acre on the forest floor, compared with 6 to 8 tons 92 years ago, Stephens said.
"We know the last fire in that area was in about 1905. That's 100 years without fire," Stephens said. "If you don't clear trees and brush and do some prescribed burning, you are eventually going to get a very closed forest that is very dense."
The U.S. Forest Service reported today, Sept. 3, that the Rim Fire is 70 percent contained.
UC research predicts climate change effects in California
The report, the third such assessment since 2006, provides new data to help Californians plan and adapt to climate change.
"Significant increases in wildfires, floods, severe storms, drought and heat waves are clear evidence that climate change is happening now. California is stepping up to lead the way in preparing for — and adapting to — this change," said state Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird. "These reports use cutting-edge science to provide an analytical roadmap, pointing the way for taking concrete steps to protect our natural resources and all Californians."
A study led by Louise Jackson, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, took an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions on Yolo County farmland and studied how agriculture can adapt to climate change.
An op-ed co-authored by Richard Rominger, a farmer and member of the UC President’s Advisory Commission on Agriculture and Natural Resources, and published in the Sacramento Bee noted the study “found that urban land accounts for 70 times more greenhouse gas emissions per acre than cropland.” A good reason to protect cropland.
The website based on the Jackson study provides a tool for Yolo County farmers and policymakers to plan for the changes that occur at the regional level with climate change.
For planning on a larger scale, a coalition of scientists and state agencies has developed Cal-adapt, a web-based climate adaptation planning tool. Cal-adapt allows users to identify potential climate change risks in specific geographic areas throughout the state. Users can query by location or click on an interactive map to explore what climate impacts are projected to occur in different regions of the state.
“Climate change is expected to affect the quantity and timing of water flow in the state,” explained Kaveh Madani, a former postdoctoral research scholar in UC Riverside’s Water Science and Policy Center, who led a research project on climate change effects on hydropower production, demand, and pricing in California.
“If California loses snowpack under climate warming, these high-elevation reservoirs might not be able to store enough water for hydropower generation in summer months when the demand is much higher and hydropower is priced higher,” said Madani, currently an assistant professor of civil, environmental, and construction engineering at the University of Central Florida. “California might, therefore, lose hydropower in warmer months and hydropower operators may lose considerable revenues.”
Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, contributed a paper to the extensive report about increased vulnerability to wildland fires in the state.
“The incredible breadth of studies, as well as the depth of their analyses, reveals just how much the University of California has to offer in preparing us all to adapt to a changing climate,” Moritz said of the full report.
Read more on specific campus researchers' contributions to the report in these news releases:
- UC Berkeley: State taps UC researchers for expertise on climate change impacts
- UC Davis: Scientists examine California's vulnerability to climate change
- UC Merced: More homes in danger from fire in coming decades
- UC Riverside: California’s hydroelectricity production is vulnerable to climate change
- Scripps: More hot Julys, rises in sea level three feet or more forecast
For highlights of the reports in Our Changing Climate, see the California Energy Commission’s press release. The full reports can be downloaded from the CEC’s website.
Wildfires ignite debate on global warming
UC Cooperative Extension specialist Max Moritz has noticed that reporters are displaying a keen interest in the role played by global warming in what has so far been an unusually fierce 2012 fire season.
"For me, that marks a significant shift," wrote Moritz in a op-ed published in Nature yesterday. "This fresh curiosity about the link between fire and climate change is an important opportunity, of sorts."
Moritz, a wildfire expert in the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, is the author of a journal article published this summer in Ecosphere that linked climate change to global fire activity. The article is cited on a press release from U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Democrats that calls for a hearing about reducing wildfire risk.
In the Moritz op-ed, he notes that a second common question from the press about the 2012 fire season is: “If these fires are related to climate change, what can we do about it?”
The inquiry, he said, reveals a growing anxiety over how humanity can adapt to the fire-related impacts of climate change, rather than how to mitigate climate change itself.
"To co-exist with fire will require extending our approach to living with environmental risks," Moritz wrote. "Mapping other natural hazards, such as flood and earthquake zones, has taught us to avoid building on the most dangerous parts of the landscape or to engineer solutions into the built environment when we do. Encouraging the 'right kind of fire' — with frequencies, sizes and intensities appropriate to the ecosystem in question — will be necessary, where possible, so that 'record-breaking' fires are less likely to occur during 'record-breaking' heat or drought."
For some people, climate change will become a fact only when its effects hit close to home.
Climate change pushes West into a fire-prone future
A paper that examined climate change's likely effects on global fire patterns predicts the West will see more wildfire, said an article by Bettina Boxall in the Los Angeles Times.
The lead author of the paper, published Tuesday in the journal Ecosphere, was Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. Moritz, a wildfire expert, and his colleagues concluded that by the end of the century, much of the world will experience more wildfire than it does now.
Rising temperatures lengthen the fire season and dry out vegetation, making it more flammable. More rain could increase plant growth, producing more fuel to burn. In other areas, climate change may reduce fire. More rain in the tropics could decrease fire; less rain in other areas may reduce fuel levels and stunt plant growth, cutting the fire potential.
“Fire is not going anywhere,” Moritz said. The study results, he said, emphasize the need “to rethink how we live with fire and take it more seriously.”
Climate change likely means more fire for the West.
