Future conditions in California may include more rain rather than snow during the wet season, longer fire seasons, and higher temperatures leading to drier fire seasons, according to a team of researchers who looked at the historic patterns of the North Pacific Jet, precipitation and fire.
Controlled burning of forestland helped limit the severity of one of California's largest wildfires, according to Penn State geographers.
While climate contributes strongly to fire activity in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the western U.S., human activity, starting well before European contact, has also played an important part in the severity, frequency and sheer numbers of forest fires occurring in the area, according to researchers.
Severe fires in California are destroying forest and creating conditions for shrubland to grow in place of trees and take over the land. The fires could throw off the historic dynamic between the two landscape types, according to a new study.
Forest composition, ground cover and topography are the best predictors of forest fire severity in the Western U.S., according to Penn State physical geographers who also see that the long history of fire exclusion on federal lands leads to uncharacteristically severe burns and potentially changes the dynamics of forests and their recovery.
Penn State geographer Alan Taylor studied a mixed conifer forest in the Lassen National Forest in northern California known as the Cub Creek Research Natural Area, site of a wildfire in 2008. He compared burn patterns from the 1880s, before fire suppression policy took effect, with those from the 2008 fire. Taylor analyzed satellite data and field measurements using a statistical model known as "Random Forest," which predicts fire severity patterns based on characteristics of the terrain, fuels, vegetation, and weather. He found that, in general, the burning patterns were similar but with one important difference.
The lab is littered with stumps. Matt Beaty heaves one onto the counter and runs his fingers along its severed edge and over its rough-hewn surface, where its autobiography has been written in the language of tree rings. Luckily for Beaty, he's fluent in Tree Ring. He knows the grammar of ring width, the syntax of discoloration, and the context clues of scar patterns that tell the story of one tree's life—and the scenes that interest him most are those in which the tree was injured: forest fire.
"Having transcended its mountain home to become a citizen of the world, the panda is a symbolic creature that represents our efforts to protect the environment. Though dumpy and bearlike, it has been patterned with such creative flourish, such artistic perfection, that it almost seems to have evolved for this purpose. A round, rather flat face, large black eye patches, and a cuddly and clumsy appearance give the panda an innocent, childlike quality that evokes universal empathy, a desire to hug and protect. And it is rare. Survivors are somehow more poignant than casualties.
