Steve Wilent

Roger Pielke Jr. has a blog post of interest: “How to be a smart consumer of climate attribution claims:
Three rules for making sense of “event attribution” studies.” I read this with an eye toward attributing megafires to climate change.

Excerpt:

Recent years have seen a proliferation of single “event attribution” claims that are quickly churned out in the aftermath of notable extreme weather events. These analyses typically lead with strong claims of a connection between climate change and the event that just happened.

Last month I explained a bit about such claims:

Single-event attribution uses climate models to calculate the odds that a particular extreme event was made more likely as a direct and attributable consequence of human-caused climate change. Such studies generally look at two scenarios, one a counterfactual based on no increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and the other with observed increased concentrations. Then, models run under the two different scenarios are compared to see if the probability of extreme events similar to the one in question became more likely in the model runs with more greenhouse gases.

Today, I offer three rules for accepting such claims from a scientific perspective consistent with the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Event attribution claims are worth scrutiny because their underlying methodology was developed explicitly to support climate lawsuits, promote climate advocacy and attract media attention. You can read more about the politics of such claims here. [emphasis added]

It is troubling that I feel like I have to say this out loud — We should not allow the political significance of a topic to overshadow scientific rigor.

Here’s a 15-minute interview by Oregon Public Broadcasting (well, two separate interviews), about a planned BLM timber sale in southern Oregon. Intro text:

The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a controversial forest management project in southwestern Oregon. The plan, called the “Late Mungers” project, includes roughly 7,500 acres of prescribed burning and tree thinning, as well as 830 acres of logging. It’s one of the first projects approved under the BLM’s Integrated Vegetation Management plan, which the agency says will allow it to increase the “scope, scale and pace” of its wildfire prevention efforts.

But as Jefferson Public Radio has reported, the plan has faced significant backlash from environmental groups in the region. They argue that the accelerated project timeline cuts out opportunities for public comment, and that the timber sales included in the project will actually increase fire risks and endanger wildlife.

For more details about the plan, we’re joined by BLM Medford District Manager Elizabeth Burghard and Luke Ruediger, conservation director for the Klamath Forest Alliance and executive director of the Applegate-Siskiyou Alliance.

It would have been interesting to have two two folks on at the same time, for rebuttal and clarification. For example, I suspect that some “large” trees are being removed from near much larger trees. Regardless of the diameter of the trees to be cut, this may well be warranted — see our recent discussion of the “eaetside screens.”

FWIW, here’s BLM’s project FAQ.

From The Conversation: “The Biden administration has called for protecting mature US forests to slow climate change, but it’s still allowing them to be logged.” By by Beverly Law and William Moomaw. Much to critique here. Many links. For example:

“Some studies indicate that thinning forests by harvesting some trees and reintroducing low-intensity fires can reduce the intensity of future wildfires, leaving more carbon stored in trees. But these studies don’t account for the large amount of carbon that is released to the atmosphere after trees are cut.”

Law’s work has been discussed numerous times on Smokey Wire, such as here, in looking at a paper by Law et al, “Carbon sequestration and biodiversity co-benefits of preserving forests in the western USA.”

Moomaw is a proponent of “proforestation.”

From Mike Archer’s Wildfire News of the Day:

A NASA podcast takes a closer look at how satellites are used to track wildfires across the globe from outer space as the Earth warms, causing wildland blazes to become more frequent and intense.

Wildfires from Space https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/wildfires-from-space

This is from an article in The Conversation yesterday, March 6: “The West’s iconic forests are increasingly struggling to recover from wildfires – altering how fires burn could boost their chances.”

Wildfires and severe drought are killing trees at an alarming rate across the West, and forests are struggling to recover as the planet warms. However, new research shows there are ways to improve forests’ chances of recovery – by altering how wildfires burn.

In a new study, we teamed up with over 50 other fire ecologists to examine how forests have recovered – or haven’t – in over 10,000 locations after 334 wildfires.

Together, these sites offer an unprecedented look at how forests respond to wildfires and global warming.

Our results are sobering. We found that conifer tree seedlings, such as Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine, are increasingly stressed by high temperatures and dry conditions in sites recovering from wildfires. In some sites, our team didn’t find any seedlings at all. That’s worrying, because whether forests recover after a wildfire depends in large part on whether new seedlings can establish themselves and grow.

However, our team also found that if wildfires burn less intensely, forests will have a better shot at regrowing. Our study, published March 6, 2023, highlights how proactive efforts that modify how wildfires burn can help buffer seedlings from some of the biggest stressors of global warming.

The PNAS paper is open-access:

“Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States”

Thanks to Mike Archer for this link in today’s Wildfire News of the Day email (subscribe here). It’s a great Women’s History Month story….

(5) The next article provides a thumbnail sketch of a woman who became the first female pilot with U.S. Forest Service, flying lead planes battling wildfires across the West while also raising a family, one of whom became a commercial airline pilot.

Mary Barr Fought Expectations as First Female Forest Service Air Boss https://adventure-journal.com/blogs/news/mary-barr-fought-fires-and-expectations-as-first-woman-forest-service-air-boss

I posted a part of this column in another thread. Here’s the entire article, with links. It’s from the February 2023 edition of The Mountain Times, a community newspaper in my area. I write a monthly column, The Woodsman.

FWIW, California is in the midst of a “pinemaggedon.”

“Firmageddon” and Oregon Forest Health

By Steve Wilent

For newspaper, magazine, or blog editors trying to come up with attention-grabbing headlines (as all editors do) for a story about forest health (boring!), using the word “Firmageddon” would be a slam dunk. The Oregonian used the term in a November 25, 2022, article, “Record number of firs dying in Oregon, Washington in what experts call ‘Firmageddon.’” Other newspapers far and wide ran similar headlines, including Esquire, Wired, and the US edition of the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Firmageddon, a term based on “armageddon,” was coined by researchers who had compiled data cleaned from aerial surveys of forest conditions in Oregon and Washington. According to The Oregonian, the researchers found that “Fir trees in Oregon and Washington died in record-breaking numbers in 2022,” and it was “the largest die-off ever recorded for fir trees in the two states.”

Note that the die-off of firs does not include Douglas-fir, the most common tree in our area, but so-called “true fir” species grand fir and noble fir, which are common in the northern Cascades, as well as white fir, Shasta fir, and red fir, which are common in southern Oregon. Douglas-fir is not a true fir.

In assessing the results of aerial surveys covering about 25 million acres in Oregon, the researchers found that “The fir mortality is widespread and quite severe in some locations. Fir mortality has been detected across Oregon and Washington, but the elevated and more severe fir mortality was observed across the Ochoco, Malheur, Fremont, and Winema National Forests from Central Oregon to the California border. More than 1.2 million acres have been impacted with fir mortality across the Pacific Northwest, with ~1.1 million of those acres all being recorded in Oregon. Nearly double the acres impacted compared to all the previous year’s data on fir mortality in Oregon.”

The results of the surveys are summarized in “Forest Health Highlights in Oregon – 2021,” from the Oregon Department of Forestry and the US Forest Service (download it at tinyurl.com/3cmna6hc). The US Forest offers an informative “story map” that looks at data from Oregon and Washington (tinyurl.com/ywy76erh).

Trees die in our forests every year due to a variety of natural causes, such as wildfire, insect attacks, and diseases. In recent years, many trees have been weakened by drought stress, which reduces their ability to defend themselves against insects and diseases. Heat stress, such as during the unusual “heat dome” we all suffered through in 2021, also weakens trees. The graph accompanying this article shows that tree deaths from abiotic factors—drought and heat stress (shown in blue)—were far greater in 2021 than in previous years. This is not surprising, as much of Oregon has seen drought conditions in recent years, “most heavily across Oregon from the center of Oregon around the Ochoco Mountains to the California border,” according to the report.

To me, as a forester, the high mortality in true firs isn’t surprising. In many areas, especially in eastern and southwestern Oregon, true firs have “invaded” forests that had previously been dominated by large, old ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs. In the past, relatively frequent, low-intensity fires killed most of the young true firs before they could become big enough to compete with the larger, older trees. Such fires were caused by lightning or were intentionally lit by Native Americans for centuries before European settlers moved in. Today, the invading true firs have become large enough to compete with larger trees for water and nutrients, and most or all trees in these overcrowded forests are stressed, leaving them more susceptible to insects, diseases, drought, heat waves, and especially wildfire.

The US Forest Service, the Oregon Department of Forestry, private landowners, and other forest managers have worked for many years to reintroduce low-intensity fire—prescribed fire that is beneficial in ways similar to the fires lit by Native Americans. With so many young trees and dead/down woody debris in these forests, wildfires that otherwise would have been low intensity, leaving the largest trees unscathed, often become high-intensity fires that kill many or all of the large trees. Using prescribed fire in these areas can help clear out the invading firs, but only if the amount of available fuel is reduced beforehand through mechanical or hand thinning.

Oregon Forest Facts

The “Forest Health Highlights” report makes for interesting reading for foresters and others who are concerned about die-offs in our forests. For a more general look at forests, see “Oregon Forest Facts, 2023-24 Edition,” from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, or OFRI (a free download at tinyurl.com/ya9w6hwu. Teachers, take note: OFRI will mail you hard copies at co cost).

This 20-page booklet is packed with information. For example:

• Nearly half of Oregon is forestland. Oregon forests vary by species composition and ownership. There are more than 30 distinct forest types, but Douglas-fir dominates in western Oregon, ponderosa pine in eastern Oregon, and mixed conifers in southwest Oregon. In terms of ownership, the federal government manages 61% of Oregon forests; private owners manage 34%; state and county governments manage 4%; and Native American tribes manage 2%.
• Timber harvest levels from public and private forestlands over the past 20 years have remained relatively stable, although the Great Recession (2007-09) and the collapse of the housing market brought a severe contraction in the U.S. demand for lumber. Consequently, Oregon’s timber harvest reached a modern-era low in 2009, the smallest harvest since the Great Depression in 1934. By 2013, the harvest had rebounded to roughly pre-recession levels.
• Oregon has led the nation for many years in producing softwood lumber and plywood typically used for homebuilding. Oregon’s lumber output of 6.1 billion board feet in 2021 accounted for about 16.5% of total U.S. production, while Oregon plywood mills accounted for about 28% of total U.S. plywood production in 2021. 

Oregon also leads the nation in the number of plants that manufacture engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), glue-laminated timber (glulam), and mass plywood panels (MPP). MPP? Think plywood, but huge: Up to 48 feet long, 10 feet wide, and a foot thick. The only MPP manufacturer in the world, so far, is Freres Engineered Wood, in Lyons, Oregon.

Have a question about the trees and plants in our forests? Want to know how much of Oregon is forested now compared to, say, in 1600? Let me know. Email: [email protected]

It’ll be interesting to see what come of this effort….

Reminder: Innovative Finance for National Forests RFP Deadline March 6
The IFNF grant program supports the development and implementation of innovative finance models that leverage private and public capital other than U.S. Forest System annual appropriations to enhance the resilience of the National Forest System. The grants are funded and administered by the USDA Forest Service National Partnership Office and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. Up to $2 million is available this grant cycle. The RFP and additional materials are available at www.usendowment.org/ifnf.

From E&E News (subscription). The links in the article are to the documents on the NAFSR web site.

Climate change poses ‘new reality’ for Forest Service, former officials say

The organization representing retired Forest Service officials urged their former employer to more aggressively address the changing climate, warning of mounting threats to the nation’s forests.

“Changing climatic conditions and weather patterns are affecting all the nation’s forests,” the National Association of Forest Service Retirees said in a letter accompanying two position papers on the issue.

“We believe that the cascading effects of extreme events require greater focus and attention because of their many effects on communities and people,” said the letter to Homer Wilkes, undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and environment.

The association said it supports the Biden administration’s near-term approach, including a wildfire strategy mapped out by the Forest Service to accelerate and expand forest management practices aimed at reducing wildfire risks.

In the position papers, the organization noted advances in the science around climate-smart planning and management since 2000, and suggested a need for more public investment in that area — an issue that could arise in negotiations around the 2023 farm bill, for instance. One paper outlined the organization’s positions, and another described some of the scientific basis.

…

From Greenwire (subscription) today… Lots of data and background in the Federal Register notice.

The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed distinct Endangered Species Act protections Wednesday for two California spotted owl populations that have long provoked heated policy and political debate.

In a kind of split decision, the agency is proposing that the owl’s Coastal-Southern California population be listed as endangered while the larger Sierra Nevada population would receive the more lenient designation of threatened.

…

The proposal is not out of the woods yet. In addition to finalizing a listing decision after what will be a lively public comment period, the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to designate critical habitat that could conceivably spread across millions of acres.