Climate Cast: What western megablazes are telling us

It's called a feedback loop. Less snow in winter. Warmer summers that suck precious moisture from western soils and trees. The result? An exponential growth curve in western fires.

The West is burning, folks. And the trend is leading to landscape and climate scale changes that will have ripple effects throughout the globe.

Rolling Stone has a deeper perspective on this incredible western fire season.

RS logo

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

In May this year, the nearly unthinkable happened in the Pacific Northwest: The rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, one of the wettest places on the continent, caught fire. By August, an inferno was stirring in the forests east of the Cascades. A wind-whipped blaze near the mountain town of Twisp, Washington — a "hell storm," to quote a local sheriff — claimed the lives of three Forest Service fire scouts. That blaze soon exploded into the worst wildfire in state history, charring more than 300,000 acres and destroying dozens of homes.

As they raged, the wildfires in eastern Oregon and Washington devoured an area nearly the size of Delaware. The states called up more than 1,000 members of their National Guards, and the Army mobilized 200 active-duty troops to the fire lines. Ten Blackhawk helicopters and four C-130 Hercules aircraft deployed to help fight fire from the skies. With Gov. Jay Inslee calling the blazes an "unprecedented cataclysm," Washington even deputized citizen volunteers to fight the fires, where they joined professional crews from as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

This is the present, and the future, of climate change. Our overheated world is amplifying drought and making megafire commonplace. This is happening even in the soggy Pacific Northwest, which has been hard-hit by what's been dubbed a "wet drought." Despite near-normal precipitation, warm winter temperatures brought rain instead of snow to the region's mountains. What little snow did hit the ground then melted early, leaving the Northwest dry — and ready to burn in the heat of summer.

The national data is as clear as it is troubling: "Climate change has led to fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than in 1970," according to a Forest Service report published in August. In the past three decades, the annual area claimed by fire has doubled, and the agency's scientists predict that fires will likely "double again by midcentury."

California snowpack worst in 500 years

I used to visit the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research during my nine years as chief meteorologist in Tucson. Yes, I am a weather (climate) geek. It turns out tree rings are a remarkably accurate measuring system of past climates.

A study released this week in the journal "Nature Climate Change" looks back at tree rings in California shows the failed winter snowpack in the Sierras is much worse than previously thought. This is what happens when you get the lowest snowpack in 500 years.

The LA Times elaborates.

When California Gov. Jerry Brown stood in a snowless Sierra Nevada meadow on April 1 and ordered unprecedented drought restrictions, it was the first time in 75 years that the area had lacked any sign of spring snow.

Now researchers say this year’s record-low snowpack may be far more historic — and ominous — than previously realized.

In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists estimate that the amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada was the lowest in more than 500 years.

“We were expecting that 2015 would be extreme, but not like this,” said senior study author Valerie Trouet, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona.

The report is the latest in a series of studies that have sought to characterize the depth of California’s four-year drought and place it in a broader historic context. It joins a growing body of research warning that global warming will reduce the amount of snow blanketing California mountains — a development that will reduce the state’s available water, even as its population continues to grow.

“This is probably the biggest water supply concern our state is facing,” said Mark Gold, associate vice chancellor for environment and sustainability at UCLA who was not involved in the new study. “On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s 11.”

CC Sandy Mantoloking NJ NJNG
Hurricane Sandy breaches New Jersey Coast. US Coast Guard

Where do we go?

Entire towns incinerated in California. Rising seas along the east coast. It seems nowhere is safe as climate lurches dramatically in some regions. Which cities are most vulnerable to climate shifts? Here's a hint. Minnesota may be one of the better places to absorb future climate shifts.

The New York Times has some interesting perspective worth rereading on which cities are most likely to be resilient as climate shifts.

Alaskans, stay in Alaska. People in the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, sit tight.

Scientists trying to predict the consequences of climate change say that they see few havens from the storms, floods and droughts that are sure to intensify over the coming decades. But some regions, they add, will fare much better than others.

Forget most of California and the Southwest (drought, wildfires). Ditto for much of the East Coast and Southeast (heat waves, hurricanes, rising sea levels). Washington, D.C., for example, may well be a flood zone by 2100, according to an estimate released last week.

Instead, consider Anchorage. Or even, perhaps, Detroit.

“If you do not like it hot and do not want to be hit by a hurricane, the options of where to go are very limited,” said Camilo Mora, a geography professor at the University of Hawaii and lead author of a paper published in Nature last year predicting that unprecedented high temperatures will become the norm worldwide by 2047.

“The best place really is Alaska,” he added. “Alaska is going to be the next Florida by the end of the century.”

WXshift climate prediction tool

Here's an interesting new tool from Climate Central. It keeps track of climate trends in your city, and gives you future averages based on climate change trends. Check out WXshift.

wxshift
Climate Central