'Climate change' and giant sequoias
A few thoughts about wildfires and climate
Volume 2, Number 13 - Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023
Published twice a week, on Monday and Thursday
Perspective
CLIMATE CHANGE — just two words, but what a range of emotions they evoke.
I remember some years back when the words most in the news were “global warming.” Some editors stopped publishing letters to the editor from people who said there was no such thing. I thought that was an extreme position for editors to take, but I also recognized that the fight was more about the politics involved and also indicative of the polarization that has strangled our society.
With that in mind, I try to keep an open mind — which isn’t easy because we are all biased, and sometimes our bias is based on misinformation.
Management issues related to giant sequoia lands are tied to climate in lots of ways. The trees have provided scientists with lots of information about past weather patterns. The extraordinary wildfires we experienced in the Sierra Nevada in recent years may be part of a long-term pattern that we don’t have enough history to recognize. Or the result of a “century of mismanagement” with the Forest Service rushing to put out wildfires, as some claim. Or the result of shutting down logging, as some claim. Or the result of lawsuits from environmentalists. Or… (there are plenty of opinions).
Whatever the cause, the effect has been astounding to us mortals who get to live on this planet less than 80 years on average. We never expected to see so many monarch giant sequoia trees killed.
Last year and this year (so far), we’ve had a welcome respite from massive wildfires in Central California — but we’ve had some pretty crazy weather to make up for it. And I don’t think anyone believes what we’ve seen this year will become the norm.
NASA provides a very interesting web page about climate change HERE. The agency defines climate change as “a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates.”
Also, according to NASA, “‘Climate change” and “global warming” are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Similarly, the terms "weather" and "climate" are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales.”
You may not, but I have chosen to accept NASA’s related definitions, including this one:
Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. This term is not interchangeable with the term "climate change."
According to NASA, “since the pre-industrial period, human activities are estimated to have increased Earth’s global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), a number that is currently increasing by more than 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. The current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the 1950s and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate over millennia.”
I’ve chosen to accept what NASA says about climate (above) because I’ve observed changes in California during the past 71-plus years.
On the other hand, this last year seemed more like the years I remember from my youth. We’ve had more rain and a cooler summer.
Still, I have to say that I think politicians have gone climate-crazy. Although I came to accept that our climate seems to be changing, I’ve never thought there was much we could do about it except understand and adapt.
I know the history of the area where I live and the San Joaquin Valley to the west. People here protested in the 1940s when the largest migration known to our country took place, as there was a mass exodus from Oklahoma and other states. “The Dust Bowl” migration had a huge impact on the places these people moved to and from.
But people are different today. Life has become more complex. We look to legislation and litigation to solve our problems. And California seems to aiming to develop both as a new art form. I actually try, but I can’t keep up with it all.
I don’t have any answers, but I try to present readers with a range of material related to giant sequoias, and this necessarily includes occasionally discussing climate change.
Wildfire, water & weather update
Unseasonably cool. We’re two days from the official beginning of fall, but the weather seems to be there already. There was a slight chance of thunderstorms and rain in the mountains this morning. The best Sierra Nevada weather forecasts can be found at NWS Hanford, HERE, and NWS Sacramento, HERE. The San Francisco Chronicle has an article HERE (gift link) about fire weather ramping up.
Wildfire update: Here’s the federal Situation Report for today. Across the country this morning, there are 31 uncontained large fires, in addition to 34 fires being managed under a strategy other than full suppression.
In California, not much has changed with WatchDuty HERE, and it shows most of the large fire activity in the state remains still in the far north. Containment has improved on the Smith River Complex Fire. It’s nearly 93,000 acres and 79% contained.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has issued an air quality alert for Merced, Madera, Tulare, Fresno, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, mostly because of wildfires continuing in Northern California but also because of the Redwood Fire in Sequoia National Park and prescribed fires in the Sierra Nevada.
Also, within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, seven small fires were ignited by recent lighting. They’re being monitored by air. You can check them out HERE on Inciweb.
The Redwood Fire in Sequoia National Park was at 1,835 acres yesterday. As reported previously, officials are managing the fire with a “confine and contain” strategy and expect it will grow to about 3,000 acres.
From the latest Inciweb report yesterday (HERE):
Fire continues to back towards Cliff Creek, west of the current footprint. Fire behavior continues at low intensity, spreading within containment lines. Aerial ignitions have been completed and smoke impacts are expected to reduce in the coming days. The fire is currently measured at 1,835 acres.
Performing ignitions allows firefighters to regulate the intensity of the fire as fuels are consumed. Regulating the intensity of the fire will help to ensure that there are favorable fire effects within the burned area, especially as the fire moves through giant sequoia groves. When ignitions resume, smoke impacts are expected to be more pronounced overnight and in the morning in Grant Grove, Giant Forest, the foothills of Sequoia National Park, and the community of Three Rivers. However, ignitions will also serve to limit the overall duration of smoke impacts from the Redwood Fire.
The parks are utilizing an indirect confine-and-contain suppression strategy for the Redwood Fire.
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Giant sequoias in the news
• A giant sequoia was used to illustrate an article on Bloomberg.com with the headline “Carbon Offsets Undercut California’s Climate Progress, Researchers Find” and the subhead “A new study indicates that forest projects in the state’s cap-and-trade system provide little additional benefit for the climate.” You can read it HERE (gift link). And an excerpt:
In the first nine years of California’s cap-and-trade program, companies have purchased offsets representing more than 140 million tons of emissions — nearly double the recent annual climate footprint of Greece — to help meet their requirements.
But the most frequently used type of offset project in the state program appears to deliver far fewer climate benefits than claimed, according to the peer-reviewed paper, published in Communications Earth & Environment and led by scientists at advisory firm Carbon Direct, as well as academics at the University of California at Berkeley. Those projects, known as “improved forest management,” are supposed to create healthier forests that soak up more carbon by strategies such as reducing or delaying timber harvests. Thus far, they’ve accounted for more than 80% of the offsets issued under California’s program.
All offset projects are supposed to deliver climate benefits that are “additional,” meaning the climate-friendly activity was unlikely to occur without the carbon payments. But IFM projects appear to cause the storage of little extra carbon, according to the researchers, who analyzed decades of satellite data for 90 such projects and compared the pattern of changes on these lands to what occurred in similar forests not enrolled for carbon payments.
• The Visalia Times-Delta has an article HERE about the gray wolf pack on Sequoia National Forest.
• The Conversation has a piece HERE about wildfire risk in California, Oregon and Washington and says the risk is soaring for low-income, elderly and other vulnerable populations.
Giant sequoia around the world
Yes, giant sequoias grow where I live in Tehachapi. To our north is the Southern Sierra Nevada, and to our south the east-west Tehachapi Mountains. The oldest giant sequoia I’ve been able to find here was planted in front of a downtown home in 1905. And there are many others.
You can read my article and see photos on pages 18-19 of Tehachapi Living Magazine, HERE.
Thanks for reading!