So wildfires release more CO2 than many states do in a year, with potentially devastating effects on Global Climate Change.
What are the implications for forest management?
Does this fact, along with the other costs of these wildfires, make selective clearing of forest areas (perhaps using that biomass to generate power in other ways, eg cofiring with coal to decrease emissions) a wiser option?
Out of curiousity, and because the article didn’t address it, what’s the countering effect from the large amounts of smoke particulates released? I know volcanos have a (temporary) cooling effect due to particulates released blocking sunlight but do wildfires of large magnitude have the same effect or is the amount of smoke released not significant (or doesn’t remain in the atmosphere)?
Nitpick: your cite actually says that this research estimates that wildfires can release more CO2 than a state’s annual motor vehicle emissions. Most states also generate a lot of additional CO2 from non-motor-vehicle sources. So much, in fact, that according to the article, wildfire emissions add up to only about 5% of US emissions from burning fossil fuels:
Another point worth noting in your link:
Emphasis added. This is definitely an interesting area of research, but it doesn’t sound as though there are solid estimates as yet of what the climate impacts will be.
I also wonder whether the possible climate benefits of reducing wildfires by clearing large amounts of forested area would actually outweigh the negative effect of losing the carbon sink that those forests used to provide.
In any case, AIUI, wildfires are a fairly stable part of the global carbon cycle: that is, their total CO2 contribution on average doesn’t change much over the long term. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions, on the other hand, are continually and steeply increasing, and according to current theories are the major destabilizing force behind global climate change.
I think if we’re concerned about atmospheric CO2 levels, it is smartest to focus our attention on cutting back (or at least slowing) the rise of anthropogenic CO2, rather than worrying about emissions from wildfires. If we do manage to stabilize anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the fairly stable CO2 contribution from wildfires will probably not be important; and if we don’t manage to stabilize anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the global climate as we know it is probably screwed anyway, no matter what we do or don’t do about wildfires.
I apologize for my imprecision.
Some of your points, Kimstu, that I’d dispute-
Re the carbon sink- Biomass burned in a wildfire serves no function as a carbon sink. True, regrowth in areas that have been burned would capture some CO2. Would clearing in a manner that reduced the risk massive fires also allow for regrowth that captured CO2? I defer to minds more knowledgable than mine on this. But clearing in that manner could be done a manner that maintained the carbon captured in building product or, perhaps, biomass for power generation and thus displacement of carbon released by coal.
Widfire are “a fairly stable part of the global carbon cycle”? No.
This is unfortunately a potential feedforward mechanism: global climate change results in a greater risk of droughts which increases the risk of more intense fires which releases more CO2 which …
Some details can be found here. (Warning- pdf) While this testimony is on behalf of the foresting industry, I have a hard time finding much flaw with it. He concludes-
Forest management (excessive fire supression, etc.) has been blamed for the increasing frequency and intensity of fires in the past but a recent analysis does seem to support that global climate change is more of the culprit.
I had no idea that addressing other larger contributers and effects of GCC would be diminished by addressing this one. Somehow I thought that addressing GCC was best approached by addressing as many of the contributing factors as possible as quickly as possible and as cost effectively as possible. Even one that “only” contributed about 5% of the total. Silly me.
Jophiel, I’ve no idea.
Yes. In fact, your own cite says:
Disregarding your snark and responding to your point, I agree that it would be great if addressing one type of environmental problem didn’t take resources away from addressing other types. Unfortunately, though, I’m afraid that that does often happen. So I don’t think it’s pointless or stupid to emphasize the issue of what our priorities ought to be when it comes to dealing with sources of emissions that contribute to climate change.
The reason I made that point was just to counterbalance the somewhat misleading introduction of your OP, which appeared to suggest that the amount of emissions from wildfires was actually a serious competitor with anthropogenic emissions as a “potentially devastating” contributor to climate change.
And they’re not, of course. Even if wildfires and hence wildfire emissions are now increasing due to the warmer global climate, they’re still not increasing anywhere near as much as direct anthropogenic emissions, nor are they anywhere near the size of direct anthropogenic emissions, nor is their expected future effect anywhere near as drastic. Compared to anthropogenic emissions, wildfire emissions are a much more stable part of the global carbon cycle.
So sure, as long as we’ve got the severity of the wildfire-emissions problem in perspective and aren’t imagining it as orders of magnitude more “devastating” than it actually is, there’s nothing wrong at all with discussing how that problem might best be addressed. Not every debate has to be about the biggest issues or the worst problems.
Are you suggesting that the best way to reduce wildland fires is to clearcut the land before fires start? Any consideration for watershed issues, wildlife, recreation, oxygen creation, erosion, plant diversification, etc?
No. I am not suggesting that. I am wondering if forest management that decreases fuel density can simultaneously decrease the cost of widfires incurred by fighting them, the costs incurred by damage from them, the costs incurred by significant contribution to GCC, and meanwhile use the biomass that is currently burning each year to instead offset other carbon produced. Such forest management would be rational and designed to preserve habitiat, watershed, etc better than unrestrained fires of increasing intensity do.
Kimstu, The issue here is not where in the priority list it falls until you know how much long term benefit is possible for how much short-term cost - if any. This, unlike many other actions relevant to GCC, are not expense without immediate offsetting gain; they instead are actions that the forestry industry wants to do for reasons of avarice anyway. The question is if we should let them and under what sorts of guidelines if we do?
Just thinking of GCC benefit - imagine someone proposing an intervention that could decrease the contributions of California’s GCC relevant car emissions just by half- how much should California be willing to spend to do that?
What if they could do that for no net immediate cost and perhaps even a net short-term profit both to the state, individuals, and private industry - all while investing in longer term gains by decreasing that portion of carbon emissions? Should they do that? Or is it too small to chase?
If not, then why not? Again, the carbon sink concept should be just as true for removal of biomass by foresters as by fire.
The answer would have to depend on what the benefits and trade-offs would be. As one of your own cites points out, a lot of the recent increase in large-scale wildfires has been due to increased penetration by humans and their fire-causing activities into fire-prone areas, not to climate change per se. Maybe the best and cheapest way for us to reduce wildfires would be just to have better public education and more stringent regulation on human fire-causing activities.
How much of an increase in forest harvesting would be required to make a significant enough difference in wildfire incidence to substantially reduce carbon emissions from wildfires? What would be the effect of that increase on other aspects of the health of the forested areas, including their ability to sequester carbon? How would it affect other parts of the forest ecosystems besides the trees? How much carbon emissions would be generated by the intensified harvesting process itself?
The question of how wildfires contribute to climate change, and how human forestry practices influence the role of forests in the carbon cycle, is definitely an interesting one and well worth discussing. But I don’t think we’ve seen any serious evidence so far that increased forest harvesting by the timber industry would actually be a net plus when it comes to curtailing climate change.
There’s definitely evidence that the timber industry is stumping (ha ha) for that position, but they don’t seem to have produced much in the way of facts. At present, all we’ve seen is a very vague handwaving argument along the lines of “Increased harvesting might reduce emissions-causing wildfires, and the timber industry has a ready-made incentive to do it!”
So what? Where’s the evidence, as opposed to conjecture, that such a policy would actually be an improvement for forest ecosystems and/or the global climate?
Not sure how react to the fires. I’m not finished worrying about the hurricanes. Just doing what I’m told.
If what you are linking to is in any way accurate, then it’s a good thing we humans are around to put out small fires started by lightning that, before we were capable of putting them out, would burn areas the size of several states.
Humans are good for global warming!