Boreal Biomass Burning — an Escalating Contribution to Climate Change?

© 2010 Peter Free

 

07 December 2010

 

 

“Momma, the ground’s burning”

 

Climate scientists appear not to have anticipated the sudden increase in boreal (northern) forest and soil biomass fires.  Over the last ten years, fires have been more extensive in area and burned deeper into the ground than previously.

 

 

Citations

 

Merritt R. Turetsky et al., Recent acceleration of biomass burning Alaskan forests and peatlands, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo1027 (05 December 2010)

 

 

Northern Wildfires Threaten Runaway Climate Change, Study Reveals, ScienceDaily (06 December 2010)

 

 

Anticipated effects related to the burning

 

The suspicion is that these fires are releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than ordinary forest fires.  They draw on decades of accumulated biological materials that had previously been bound in cold or frozen ground.

 

The hypothesis extrapolated from the boreal burning phenomenon is that the increased frequency in fires, as well as the comparatively larger release of carbon per fire (given the soil’s contribution), will escalate climatic warming.  The most pronounced effect is expected in northern climates.  Thereby escalating the frequency and depth of boreal burning — at least until the biomass fuel supply runs out.

 

 

Positive feedback loops — going faster in the direction of instability

 

The boreal wildfires phenomenon may be the most visible manifestation of the potential for positive feedback loops that some climatologists feared a few years ago.

 

Experimenting on ourselves

 

The future will be interesting.  It is as if humanity has inadvertently been doing an undesigned experiment on itself.

 

The problem with undesigned experiments, especially those in systems that are little understood, is that one has no idea where they are going to go and how significant their effects will be.

 

 

A little late for the stop switch

 

It’s too late now to stall this experiment before measureable change takes place.  Particularly so, if significant positive feedback enters the equation.

 

 

We’re in the Uncertainty Zone

 

Although I was early on board regarding the human contribution to climate change hypothesis, I have been more cautious than many in characterizing its coming effects.

 

Change is also not always globally bad.  It’s just bad for some of us.  Like polar bears and people living in too-low places.

 

Though I do think we should be doing something to reduce our skyprint, I am not certain that it is realistic to think that people, being the greedy procrastinating creatures we are, are going to.

 

Climate change is an excellent example of the difficulty of intelligently applying the Precautionary Principle.

 

The Principle says, to one degree or another depending its formulation, that society should put the burden of proving safety upon the experimenter, manufacturer, or system-changer — before the experiment, change, or modification is allowed to begin.

 

Ignorance about climate dynamics — demonstrated via our conflicting, rudimentary regional models that leave out more data than they include — means that, even though we have proven that human beings have affected climate, we cannot predict:

 

(i) what the effects will be,

 

(ii) where they will land, or

 

(iii) to what degree they will be cumulatively harmful, beneficial, or neutral.

 

Right now, we are like a kid who lighted a fuse to something that may range from firecracker to nuclear stockpile hidden somewhere near, far, or in between.

 

 

If we really screwed up, it may be too late to fix the problem

 

Wide-ranging uncertainty about climate dynamics means that — if human beings have tipped climate in an ultimately alarming way — it may be too late to do much about it. At least before the effects of our inadvertent experiment begin to manifest in obvious ways.

 

On the positive side, the Earth has experienced dramatic climate change before.

 

See, for example, Peter K. Bijl et al., Transient Middle Eocene Atmospheric CO2 and Temperature Variations, Science 330(6005): 819-821 (05 November 2010)

 

Today’s change may be developing faster than former alterations, with a resulting extinction-producing effect on many species.

 

However, it seems unlikely, given the degree of the previous changes, that this one will exceed them in accumulated overall magnitude.  Unless, perhaps, we continue our profligate ways.

 

None of this means that a dramatic climatic change will be fun for the generation(s) and localities that have to adapt to it.  People without financial recourse are the most likely to be the first to lose their homes, livelihoods, and lives. For example, rising sea levels will almost certainly submerge low-lying Bangladesh and some Pacific islands.

 

 

Too short-term a brain?

 

Human-caused climate change may ultimately indicate that we have brains that are too focused on the short-term to survive comfortably after having lighted this particular global fuse.