New study shows surprising effects of fire in North America’s boreal forests
A new study, using a first-of-its-kind approach to analyze satellite imagery from boreal forests over the last three decades, has found that fire may be changing the face of the region in a way researchers did not previously anticipate.
Historically, fires in North American boreal forests have led to coniferous trees being supplanted by deciduous trees, which are faster growing, take up more carbon and reflect more light, leading to cooling of the climate and decreased likelihood of fire.
The study, led by Northern Arizona University and published today in Nature Climate Change, found that surprisingly, while forests do become more deciduous, they don’t stay that way; a few decades later, the same forests gradually start to shift back toward coniferous trees.
Cranberry growers are bringing wetlands back from the dead
In Massachusetts, the onetime cranberry capital of the world, former bogs are transforming into thriving, carbon-storing swamps.
When Glorianna Davenport and her husband, Evan Schulman, decided in the early 2000s to stop growing cranberries after two decades in the business, they were left with a difficult choice. They could sell their land, parts of which had been farmed for well over a century, to a developer and watch it be “chopped up into small lots,” as Davenport puts it. Or they could fight to keep it whole.
Continue reading on Reasons to be Cheerful.
From the Silo – The Road to COP 28: Episode 2
The first episode in our series leading up to the COP28 summit in November will be distributed in two parts. This episode, called the Road to COP28, features the second half of a roundtable conversation hosted by Rachel Kyte, Dean Emerita of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland also joins the conversation to share his insight on the COP event and efforts to address climate issues in the US Senate. Our panel of experts includes Professor at the University College London Mark Maslin, Interim Chair of the IUCN Climate Crisis Commission Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Gavin Schmidt, Chief of Government Relations at the Woodwell Climate Research Center David McGlinchey, and Co-Founding Dean Emerita of the Columbia Climate School Ruth DeFries. Their conversation sets the stage for what needs to be done at the upcoming COP 28 conference, and foreshadows what real policy changes, if any, may come as a result. Join us for this extremely critical discussion.
Record-breaking wildfires blanket Brazil with smoke
The blazes comes on top of a drought that has left some river communities stranded.
A record-breaking number of wildfires are blanketing the Amazon with smoke, choking some Brazilian cities and further isolating many Indigenous villages. Over 2,700 wildfires have been reported in the region in the first 11 days of the month — the highest number for any October since 1998, when the record-keeping began.
Air quality became so poor last week in places like Manaus that officials had to postpone the city’s annual marathon, and major universities canceled classes. Philip Fearnside, research professor at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia, said hospitals in the city are full of people who are having respiratory issues. “That should be a wake up call to actually change government policies and individual behavior to actually contain global warming,” he said.
World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days
The world is breaching a key warming threshold at a rate that has scientists concerned, a BBC analysis has found.
On about a third of days in 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels.
Staying below that marker long-term is widely considered crucial to avoid the most damaging impacts of climate change.
But 2023 is “on track” to be the hottest year on record, and 2024 could be hotter.
Understanding Arctic ecology and climate science
Dr. Susan Natali, Arctic program director and senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, discusses the effect of permafrost thaw and wildfires on northern ecosystems, the Arctic population, and the global climate. Esri scientist Dr. Sheridan Moore investigates how mapping and analytics are informing Arctic ecology and global climate action.
Listen on Esri & the Science of Where.
Lawrence Livermore grabs two spots in DOE’s Energy Earthshot program
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists will lead and co-lead projects in support of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) new Energy Earthshot program.
The Energy Earthshots Initiative calls for innovation and collaboration to tackle the toughest topics in energy-related research. In January, DOE announced Office of Science funding for the Energy Earthshot Research Centers (EERCs) — they will build off a concept the DOE successfully demonstrated in the previous Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) and the Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. The new centers will support fundamental research to accelerate breakthroughs in support of the Energy Earthshots Initiative.
Read more on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
NCCS hosts modeling analysis of carbon uptake by global boreal forests
According to NASA research, summer 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880. In this changing climate, the Arctic and boreal region is experiencing the strongest warming trends – close to four times the global average.
“This warming is having profound (often contrasting) impacts on the landscape and carbon cycle,” said Jennifer Watts, Assistant Scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. For instance, “permafrost and seasonally frozen soils in this region hold more carbon than is currently in the entire atmosphere,” she said. As these soils thaw in warmer temperatures, solid carbon stored in them can become food for microbes and get converted into carbon dioxide or methane gas. “Adding these additional sources of carbon dioxide or methane into the atmosphere is very bad for our Earth because it further accelerates climate change, including the warming of Arctic-boreal regions,” Watts said.
Continue reading on NASA Center for Climate Simulation.