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Editorial [1] in Nature Sustainability on #wildfires
"With summer #temperatures soaring across the globe, creating ideal conditions for wildfires to break out, large, frequent and potentially harmful fires are likely to be an increasing presence in our lives. [...]
These fires have serious #health and #EconomicImpacts for the surrounding #communities and for seasonal visitors" [1]
(On #ClimateChange, e.g. past vs present, always worth #IPCC
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-1/figure-1-5
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-2/figure-2-11)
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"However, [...] massive #smoke and #AirPollution events [...] have now made it clear that the impacts of #wildfires on #society, #health and #infrastructure are not only confined to traditionally fire-prone regions." [1]
"Exposure to wildfire smoke can have serious health consequences. Respiratory and cardiac #illness are the most common detrimental outcomes, but recent research suggests that PM2.5 exposure from wildfires may have an effect on human cognition." [1]
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"The adverse #HealthImpacts of wildfire exposure are projected to increase under likely future #ClimateChange
scenarios.
The #economic effects of ongoing and intensifying wildfires are also far-reaching. [...] #Wildfires close roads and down powerlines, and the exposure of critical infrastructure to damaging burn areas is increasing [...]
The #GreenEnergy sector, critical to reducing our dependence on #FossilFuels and mitigating future climate change, is also affected" [1]
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For example, a 2023 study [2] on Western United States found that #solar #photovoltaics (PV) "energy production decreases 8.3 % on average during high #smoke days at PV sites as compared to similar conditions without smoke present." [2]
However, #ClimateChange and human factors both contribute. This is because "#ClimateChange is increasing the #probability of ‘fire weather’" [1], but this increased #FireDangerByWeather acts on existing #ignitions, either natural or human-caused.
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"Humans and human activity are a major #ignition source for many of the fires we see in the news. #AgriculturalBurns that get out of control, faulty power lines, #arson and other human activities are all major sources of wildfire ignition" [1]
"So, what can we do? To live sustainably with #wildfires, we need to develop [...] #management and #response systems. Some of that will need to be in managing wildfire outbreaks and burns, including controlling anthropogenic ignition sources" [1]
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"But our ability to control fires is limited, and there is now an urgent need to build
#resilient #communities,
#robust lines of #communication and
holistic #ResponsePlans [...].
This will require concrete adaptations such as equipping schools, care facilities and other critical municipal buildings with proper filtration to protect vulnerable communities from #smoke-induced #AirPollution. However, true resilience will also require building less tangible #infrastructure" [1]
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A commentary on #Canada #wildfires (https://theconversation.com/joining-forces-how-collaboration-can-help-tackle-canadas-escalating-wildfire-threat-209571) suggests building relationships and #trust in calmer times especially "among those who will work on the same, or connected, tasks in non-emergency times" (example of #ExtendedPeerCommunity).
With the words of an "emergency manager from Alberta", "response happens at the “speed of trust,” where trust is assumed and second-guessing decisions is not an option. The only way to do that is to build relationships ahead of the emergency"
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[1] Nature Sustainability, 2023. Summers up in smoke. Nature Sustainability 6 (8), 875–876. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01211-8
[2] Gilletly, S.D., Jackson, N.D., Staid, A., 2023. Evaluating the impact of wildfire smoke on solar photovoltaic production. Applied Energy 348, 121303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.121303
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#Smoke by #wildfires may also be connected with #"Earth’s radiation budget through absorption of incoming shortwave radiation" with potentially underestimated effects [3]. "Wildfires emit large amounts of #BlackCarbon and light-absorbing organic carbon, known as #BrownCarbon, into the #atmosphere" and [3] suggests that "a type of dark brown carbon contributes three-quarters of the short visible light absorption and half of the long visible light absorption"
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"This strongly absorbing organic aerosol species is water insoluble, resists daytime photobleaching and increases in absorptivity with night-time atmospheric processing" [3] so that the "parameterizations of brown carbon in climate models" may "need to be revised to improve the estimation of #smoke #aerosol #RadiativeForcing and associated #warming", with potential consequences for the current #ClimateChange estimates
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[3] Chakrabarty, R.K., Shetty, N.J., Thind, A.S., Beeler, P., Sumlin, B.J., Zhang, C., Liu, P., Idrobo, J.C., Adachi, K., Wagner, N.L., Schwarz, J.P., Ahern, A., Sedlacek, A.J., Lambe, A., Daube, C., Lyu, M., Liu, C., Herndon, S., Onasch, T.B., Mishra, R., 2023. Shortwave absorption by wildfire smoke dominated by dark brown carbon. Nature Geoscience 16 (8), 683–688. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01237-9
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On the two-way feedback #wildfires vs #ClimateChange:
(@Harvard@mastodon.online https://mastodon.online/@Harvard/110944354252358213)
Loretta Mickley summary:
"Not only are they a symptom of climate change — becoming bigger, hotter, and more common in regions where they can affect large population centers — but they also make the crisis worse. By burning vast layers of partially decomposed vegetable matter called #peat, fires like those in #Canada release even more #GreenhouseGases into the #atmosphere"
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https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/wildfires-are-much-worse-than-a-sign-of-climate-change-says-expert, #ClimateChange vs #wildfires
1. "fires in #boreal regions become more intense, and, because of the tremendous heat being generated, #peat, which has stored carbon for thousands of years, can start to burn and contribute massive amounts of carbon to the air.
That carbon will take at least another 1000 years to go back into the peat"
2. "in boreal regions, fires can thaw #permafrost, beginning a cascade of microbial processes that may also generate #GreenhouseGases"
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https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/08/wildfires-are-much-worse-than-a-sign-of-climate-change-says-expert/, Loretta Mickley
"#ClimateChange affecting the succession of vegetation in an #ecosystem. [...] If you burn, for example, the #conifers in Sierra Nevada, you may not get conifers back. It’s too dry and too warm during certain times of the year.
That could be another source of #carbon into the #atmosphere. There is some concern that after the recent very large fires in the western U.S., [...] given the changing climate, we won’t see the same dense vegetation return"
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An example of #ecosystem #niche loss (here, in #arid areas) after a major #wildfire event, with the simultaneous pressure of #ClimateChange
Despite human intervention (which artificially tries to support the ecological niche - selective replanting and watering - compared with natural conditions where seedlings would be simply abandoned to themselves), the original #vegetation appears no more able to regrow as before
(see https://universeodon.com/@WildTypeWriter/111027230852407810 by @WildTypeWriter)
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The "#wildfire comes as a reminder of the unpredictable future [...] Warmer, drier temperatures are already stressing the preserve's spindly Joshua trees.
Models predict those warming trends will leave Joshua trees with fewer suitable places to live. [...]
the park's dense #JoshuaTree #forests may never come back after a fire. A grassy #savannah might rise up to replace them, with a few Joshua trees scattered throughout as a reminder of what once was."
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As highlighted by @petersuber
https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/111319718629278600
another commentary on #wildfires in #Canada offers some comparisons to better grasp their magnitude
By @dwallacewells,
archived version at
https://web.archive.org/web/20231024094112/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/magazine/canada-wildfires.html
"About 10 percent of the world’s #forest is Canadian, and in the past four decades, nearly a third of that land has burned"
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The commentary continues:
"This year, toxic air from Canadian fires spread as far as the lungs of those living in Nuuk, Greenland, where there was darkness at noon in the capital in late September, and of those in Spain and Britain, who choked on Canadian #ash in June. When the #smoke from fires in eastern #Canada spread south into the #UnitedStates, parts of the Midwest and Northeast registered the worst #AirQuality readings anywhere in the world"
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Emerging "fires also releasing new weather: fire wind, fire whirls, fire tornadoes and fire thunderstorms, those last produced by #pyrocumulonimbus clouds [...] which can reach 200 miles wide and stretch high into the atmosphere, carrying anything that’s burned upward, and which can produce thousands of new strikes of what is called pyrogenic lightning, igniting potentially dozens of new fires anywhere within a 50-mile radius of the cloud"