Don,
You say the west is much better off than it was 10 years ago. Well how
much better? How much acreage or what percentage of federal forests are
still overstocked due to fire suppression and carry a higher risk of
catastrophic forest fires? What percentage or how many acres have been
treated in the last 10 years?
I'm asking this because the articles I've read is that the problem of
overstocked forests in the west remains absolutely immense.
In SE Massachusetts we have the Pine Barrens at Myles Standish State
Forest where they do some prescribed burning and have started to remove
some of the red pine plantations. This is helping to restore the native
forest there.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DON BERTOLETTE
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 4:05 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to
climate change and other factors
Mike-
Dendrochonology was initially as you say a fairly direct
correlation between ring width and moisture relations. But as the
discipline evolved, the array of statistical analytic tools available is
mind boggling, at least for my abilities. Myy stat guy at UMASS made me
promise that I'd not take anymore stat classes, otherwise I'd have
barely passed the class. But advanced statistical analysis aside, I did
understand the breadth of tools available to dendrochronologists, and
I'd encourage you to approach local folks like Lee Frelich, Neil
Pedersen, or David Stahle for a better understanding of the
relationships of climate (you mention atmospheric CO2, El Nino/La Nina
cycles, etc.) with the record of tree rings so far accumulated. But the
answer is yes there are varying levels of confidence in these
correlations, but they are there.
Some interesting accounts of the proxies by which some
of these relationships are generated follow:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_longer.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/animation/pdsi_animation.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/image/pdsi/pdsi_tr.mov
With regard to environmentalists that say that thinning
(you don't specify whether thinning is achieved by fire, or fire
surrogates (mechanical thinning strategies)) CAUSES catastrophic
wildfires, I can think of several thinning efforts, particulary those
using wildfire for resource benefit (referred to as WFURBs in 'the
business) that went bad, usually due to unexpected weather changes.
Grand Canyon NP had one of those, during my time there. We were not
above reproach, we were overextended at the time that an ongoing
blacklining operation was initiated, and the subsequent weather change,
in conjunction with a western region-wide low available firefighter
manpower situation coalesced into a 16,000 plus acre fire that burned
through some prime (at least to me) forest real estate on the North Rim.
But these are the exceptions to the rule...much of the west is much
better off than it was 10 years ago, BECAUSE of the reintroduction of
natural fire regimes. Does the west need to continue the various
thinning practices? Fire scientists have learned much in the last two
decades, and yes, we need to continue such efforts so that we can step
out of the ecosystems, and let them manage themselves...the goals of
every one of these efforts that I'm familiar with, is the return of fire
dependent ecosystems to their natural fire regimes. These are
characterized by high frequency, low burn intensity wildfires. They are
characterized by ground fires, burning through forest without fuel
ladders that enable wildfires to climb into the crowns which lead often
to catastrophic damage. I worked hand in hand with Sharon Galbreath of
the Arizona Sierra Club and know full well that they don't characterize
thinning efforts as 'causing catastrophic wildfires'.
WHile in Flagstaff, I was a member of the Flagstaff
Forest Partnership which was instrumental in researching a wide variety
of thinning approaches, in several of the experimental units involved
EXACTLY the kind of equipment manipulation of slash that you employed in
some of your operations, to good effect, although some worked better
than others...there were many surprises in these units, and many of the
stakeholders' eyes were opened.
The "Flagstaff Plan" went on to get national exposure
and significant funding support during the time I was involved there.
The biggest success was the Northern Arizona University and Ecological
Restoration Institute's efforts at working with the local community, the
recycling of research and educational programs, and achieving consensus.
Re bio-fuel energy generators, you're on the money...as
businesses get bigger, the less they concern themselves with
environmental ethics, at least in my experience...
I do disagree that the problem has gotten out of hand
and that we should just throw up our hands and give up...headway is
being made, and should continue...the years of right hearted but wrong
minded fire suppression need to be corrected. Unfortunately this need
is really brought to a head by the tendency of new developments to be
located at the wildland urban interface, without attention being paid
defensible space...but that's another story!
-Don
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation forest response to
climate change and other factors
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:20:20 -0400
Don,
So if you match up the tree ring data, which shows the
drought years by narrow rings, with the increase in atmospheric CO2, is
there some kind of correlation?
I would guess there are too many other factors involved
like Pacific ocean currents (El Nino, etc.) to account for droughts and
other weather anomalies.
Regarding thinning those overstocked Ponderosa Pine and
other conifer stands out west, some environmentalists say it increases
the risk of catastrophic fires rather than reduce it. However, I think
they are referring to conventional logging operations which just take
out the more valuable and merchantable sawlogs while leaving the tops.
By employing whole tree harvesting, I'd say it would greatly reduce the
fire risk. After one of my operations, sure there is still a bit of
scattered slash around but the feller-buncher and the grapple skidders
turn the rest of it into a sort of mulch (fragmented bark, branches,
twigs, leaves, etc.).
But your distances are so vast out there; it is no doubt
extremely difficult to do this type of harvesting profitably unless many
small biomass plants are built locally in the small towns as you say
being centrally located close to the source. This has been one of my
arguments against the big 50 MW biomass plants - the supply radii and
trucking distances are too long. Reducing the size of these plants will
reduce trucking distances and all that diesel pollution.
I think the problem of overstocked conifer forests out
west due to unnatural fire suppression has grown much too big for anyone
to solve so Mother Nature will help solve it with more catastrophic
forest fires. Burn baby burn!
Mike
Mike-
I don't pretend to know much about NIPF
in Massachusetts.
I don't think you have ever read me
saying the phrase global warming. I know that to be a loaded concept
that hasn't been universally accepted.
But I do believe that the regions I've
worked and lived in are experiencing climate change outside of the
natural range of climate variation.
Yes, actually there is tree ring
documentation to that effect. Dendrochronology started with a man named
Douglas at the Flagstaff Observatory (the one that discovered "canals"
on Mars), and was furthered in partnership with early archeologist Emil
Haury when they discovered missing tree ring segments in Anastazi
roofing timbers...there are some really intereseting regional climate
graphs that have been derived from dendrochronological research carried
on at the University of Arizona at their Tree Ring Lab ('google' Tom
Swetnum for a broad coverage of just about everything I've said).
I do however have a fair handle on
forestry in the Southwest US. I can send you any number of supporting
documents regarding my statements below. I stand behind my statement
that all five of those points are inter-related, not separated as they
were in your reply. Deconstruction doesn't work that way.
Regarding your comments on bio-fuels,
you may be surprised that I've supported it, particularly in the
Southwest, and with smaller more efficient operations. For much of the
ponderosa pine forests, conditions (4 of 5 points below) have led to
abundant smallwood that despite multiple efforts, no commercial
operations can handle. More acres of controlled burning occur than
should (difficult not to exceed air quality regulations), and running it
as bio-fuel through an efficient energy generation plant was a solution
being sought in Northern Arizona. Finding the balance between constant,
consistent, regular source in the amounts appropriate for the energy
generated was the key, that and being located centrally to the source.
The small wood fuels are abundant and burgeoning.
-Don
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: High elevation
forest response to climate change and other factors
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 16:41:24 -0400
Don,
How do you know that the current drought
in the west is the worst since 600 AD? Tree ring data?
I would say that unnatural fire
suppression has led to invading white fir regeneration and above normal
ponderosa pine regeneration as well as much of the bark beetle
outbreaks. Blaming it all on global warming is bunk.
Mike
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