Forest Fires Bigger, Hotter In Alaska As Climate Destabilizes

[hatrack]

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Fifty-five percent of the boreal forest is black spruce, a short, slender conifer that can thrive in soil just 20 inches deep and withstand winter temperatures that routinely drop to minus-50 degrees. Another 20 percent of the forest is white spruce. Black spruce, Wilcock said, will burn even if surrounded by standing water. The trees are "semi-serotinous," meaning some are sealed with pitch. When a fire moves through a stand of black spruce, the heat causes the cones to open. Cones not burned are made ready to spread seeds.

Black spruce has evolved to have waxy needles, preventing them from getting "wetted up" by rain, Juday said. The needles hold essential oils, volatile organic compounds that are highly flammable. Branches extend down to surface mosses and the trees act as ladders to lift flames on the ground to their tops, where fire can spread quickly from crown to crown. Their proclivity for burning may be an adaptation to rid the forest floor of duff, thick organic matter that accumulates, Juday said. Spruce seeds don't do well on duff, Juday said. Such an insulating layer, protecting permafrost, also keeps soil cold and a fire allows warmth to penetrate for a time.

But summer warming has upset a balance in the forest death-and-regrowth cycle, Juday said. Eighty-five percent to 90 percent of the acreage is burned in fires started by lightning. Over history, for big fires to start, conditions just right for lightning without heavy rain had to find areas on the ground with extremely low moisture content, perhaps where winter snowpack was low. With climate warming in Alaska, much more of the landscape experiences more days of extreme fire danger.

"You're getting more fires, bigger fires, more severe fires," Juday said. "When they burn, they burn hotter and more severely, and the interval between fires is getting shorter." The northeast part of the state has been hit especially hard. "In two years time, fires have burned one-fourth to one-third of all forest land," he said of the area. "It's really gone to a new set point in the whole system."

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http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/04/15/news/regional/8101f3b5df660d7287257150005c216e.txt

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. And just what the hell is going on with this weather in the midwest

with the fronts starting to do a sort of a swirl.... what they heck are they trying to become, an overland hurricane??? Criminy, we need to get out those paid for hacks that said global warming was just a lot of hot air....