A Dangerous Dance of Frost and Flame:
April 24, 2014 10:05 AM Subscribe
More Than 100 Wildfires Now Raging Along Siberian Melt-Freeze Line
(Shout out to the Climate Reanalyzer from UMaine for the image in the main link.
(Shout out to the Climate Reanalyzer from UMaine for the image in the main link.
Since the obvious proposal will be to construct a thousand-mile-long wall made of ice to keep out the fires, that interpretation may turn out to be correct.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:33 AM on April 24, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 10:33 AM on April 24, 2014 [8 favorites]
summer is coming...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:34 AM on April 24, 2014 [12 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:34 AM on April 24, 2014 [12 favorites]
methane clathrate phase change in 3..2..1...
posted by bruce at 10:38 AM on April 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by bruce at 10:38 AM on April 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
methane clathrate phase change...
Can you elaborate? Is this the idea that if the planet gets warmed enough, previously-frozen methane is released, accelerating the atmospheric changes?
posted by superelastic at 11:10 AM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Can you elaborate? Is this the idea that if the planet gets warmed enough, previously-frozen methane is released, accelerating the atmospheric changes?
posted by superelastic at 11:10 AM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Don't worry, I am sure Putin will just strip down and wrestle the flames into submission. Or something.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:26 AM on April 24, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:26 AM on April 24, 2014 [6 favorites]
superelastic: " Is this the idea that if the planet gets warmed enough, previously-frozen methane is released, accelerating the atmospheric changes?"
Yes. Sort of.
Methane clathrate is also known as methane hydrate. (CH4•5.75H2O). It's an ice lattice that lays under our oceans and permafrost, formed when water and natural gas meet cold temperatures and high pressures. It's a greenhouse gas, which means that if even a small amount of it is released, it will accelerate a rise in global insulation heating and temperatures. Visually, it looks a lot like ice but it burns when met with fire.
There are more methane hydrate reserves on the planet than there are oil. And it's also a high energy compound. Fascinating stuff.
posted by zarq at 11:30 AM on April 24, 2014 [7 favorites]
Yes. Sort of.
Methane clathrate is also known as methane hydrate. (CH4•5.75H2O). It's an ice lattice that lays under our oceans and permafrost, formed when water and natural gas meet cold temperatures and high pressures. It's a greenhouse gas, which means that if even a small amount of it is released, it will accelerate a rise in global insulation heating and temperatures. Visually, it looks a lot like ice but it burns when met with fire.
There are more methane hydrate reserves on the planet than there are oil. And it's also a high energy compound. Fascinating stuff.
posted by zarq at 11:30 AM on April 24, 2014 [7 favorites]
You Can't Tip a Buick: "my pop culture addled brain wanted to interpret the title as a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire, instead of to, like, the impending death of civilization."
I know, can you imagine how mad people are going to be if George R.R. Martin doesn't finish writing the books before the apocalypse comes? Like, rilly mad.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:38 AM on April 24, 2014
I know, can you imagine how mad people are going to be if George R.R. Martin doesn't finish writing the books before the apocalypse comes? Like, rilly mad.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:38 AM on April 24, 2014
Would you say that the zone... is one of danger?
posted by Behemoth at 11:45 AM on April 24, 2014 [12 favorites]
posted by Behemoth at 11:45 AM on April 24, 2014 [12 favorites]
I worry about anthropogenic global warming and think it is a real thing but, "Anomalous, global-warming-enhanced, fires continued to erupt..." might be overstating the case given the limited amount of time we have been collecting data.
I hate to say this about someone who I think is generally correct and rightly concerned but looking at some of his other writings it seems the dude is more alarmist than scientist.
posted by vapidave at 11:51 AM on April 24, 2014
I hate to say this about someone who I think is generally correct and rightly concerned but looking at some of his other writings it seems the dude is more alarmist than scientist.
posted by vapidave at 11:51 AM on April 24, 2014
Interesting subject, but I agree it's a bit light on the science.
I did learn about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (mentioned in the article), though, so that's a plus.
posted by skyscraper at 12:04 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
I did learn about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (mentioned in the article), though, so that's a plus.
posted by skyscraper at 12:04 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
So, not to go all CNN on us here, but since the temperature rise is drying out the taiga, wouldn't occasional fires burning up the understory be generally good for the forest overall, even if it destroys the canopy. If it clears the floor it allows the forest to become a wide-spaced "old growth". If it burns up the canopy too then it sets everything up for renewal, no?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:09 PM on April 24, 2014
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:09 PM on April 24, 2014
I did learn about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (mentioned in the article), though, so that's a plus.
That name does sound a lot better than "Joseph Stalin Memorial Jew Gulag"
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:11 PM on April 24, 2014 [5 favorites]
That name does sound a lot better than "Joseph Stalin Memorial Jew Gulag"
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:11 PM on April 24, 2014 [5 favorites]
The invasion of Ukraine is more like an evacuation.
posted by humanfont at 2:46 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by humanfont at 2:46 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
So, not to go all CNN on us here, but since the temperature rise is drying out the taiga, wouldn't occasional fires burning up the under-story be generally good for the forest overall, even if it destroys the canopy. If it clears the floor it allows the forest to become a wide-spaced "old growth". If it burns up the canopy too then it sets everything up for renewal, no?
This is generally true for fire-prone and fire adapted ecosystems-i.e. most of north american forests, especially those dominated by pines and anything west of the Mississippi. I have NO idea about Siberian Forests. Periodic fires in some forests are actually necessary and healthy, and part of the reason for the recent large harmful fires in the western US is suppression of this for 100 years.
When reading this I thought immediately about how the world must have changed to our ancestors from 15-5000 years before present (BP) as the world emerged from the glacial maximum and entered an inter-glacial stage of the ice age. Some of that change was very rapid and uneven and caused major ecosystem shifts. And a lot of it is probably the origin of some old myths in the human story (like Noah maybe? or portions of Gilgamesh? and I am sure their are several others I am unfamiliar with).
posted by bartonlong at 2:50 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is generally true for fire-prone and fire adapted ecosystems-i.e. most of north american forests, especially those dominated by pines and anything west of the Mississippi. I have NO idea about Siberian Forests. Periodic fires in some forests are actually necessary and healthy, and part of the reason for the recent large harmful fires in the western US is suppression of this for 100 years.
When reading this I thought immediately about how the world must have changed to our ancestors from 15-5000 years before present (BP) as the world emerged from the glacial maximum and entered an inter-glacial stage of the ice age. Some of that change was very rapid and uneven and caused major ecosystem shifts. And a lot of it is probably the origin of some old myths in the human story (like Noah maybe? or portions of Gilgamesh? and I am sure their are several others I am unfamiliar with).
posted by bartonlong at 2:50 PM on April 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
So, not to go all CNN on us here, but since the temperature rise is drying out the taiga, wouldn't occasional fires burning up the understory be generally good for the forest overall, even if it destroys the canopy. If it clears the floor it allows the forest to become a wide-spaced "old growth". If it burns up the canopy too then it sets everything up for renewal, no?
I assume you must live near a Ponderosa pine forest to call "old growth" widely spaced! Not all old-growth has the same spatial characteristics, first of all - old growth Doug-fir forests still have pretty dense understories, they just have more random gaps in the canopy and more spatially complex vertical layering of the canopy. Second, you have to be so careful with the term "renewal" in ecology because it's essentially meaningless unless you specify what's being renewed and in what sense. In this case, it doesn't set things up for renewal no matter what you mean by that term; fire would have stabilizing effects in a system that's accustomed to very frequent disturbance, but that almost certainly isn't the case here. Instead, it creates ripe conditions for an abrupt and destabilizing (for the organisms that live there, anyway) ecosystem transition.
It all has to do with the fire regime that the plants in the area are adapted to, and in this case, the native fauna likely has little fire resistance because fire has been so infrequent due to cold limitation. In this case, I'd be extremely worried about the disruptive effects of fire because native organisms probably won't recover quickly because they lack fire adaptations. Clearing all that land and leaving so much exposed soil (with a huge nitrogen pulse from the fire, no less) sets up a very welcoming landing pad for invasive species which can further crowd out natives, and potentially cause a full ecosystem state transition such that even the physical conditions of the ecosystem are no longer hospitable to native organisms. This is essentially how cheatgrass is so successful in the bunchgrass/sagebrush steppe of the intermountain US west - first they invaded, then they outcompeted for water, and now they've changed the fire frequency of those systems so much that natives hardly have a chance.
posted by dialetheia at 2:53 PM on April 24, 2014 [5 favorites]
I assume you must live near a Ponderosa pine forest to call "old growth" widely spaced! Not all old-growth has the same spatial characteristics, first of all - old growth Doug-fir forests still have pretty dense understories, they just have more random gaps in the canopy and more spatially complex vertical layering of the canopy. Second, you have to be so careful with the term "renewal" in ecology because it's essentially meaningless unless you specify what's being renewed and in what sense. In this case, it doesn't set things up for renewal no matter what you mean by that term; fire would have stabilizing effects in a system that's accustomed to very frequent disturbance, but that almost certainly isn't the case here. Instead, it creates ripe conditions for an abrupt and destabilizing (for the organisms that live there, anyway) ecosystem transition.
It all has to do with the fire regime that the plants in the area are adapted to, and in this case, the native fauna likely has little fire resistance because fire has been so infrequent due to cold limitation. In this case, I'd be extremely worried about the disruptive effects of fire because native organisms probably won't recover quickly because they lack fire adaptations. Clearing all that land and leaving so much exposed soil (with a huge nitrogen pulse from the fire, no less) sets up a very welcoming landing pad for invasive species which can further crowd out natives, and potentially cause a full ecosystem state transition such that even the physical conditions of the ecosystem are no longer hospitable to native organisms. This is essentially how cheatgrass is so successful in the bunchgrass/sagebrush steppe of the intermountain US west - first they invaded, then they outcompeted for water, and now they've changed the fire frequency of those systems so much that natives hardly have a chance.
posted by dialetheia at 2:53 PM on April 24, 2014 [5 favorites]
The author switches between Fahrenheit and Celsius measurements in a very confusing way:
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:00 PM on April 24, 2014
The fires come as temperatures ranging from 5-18 C above average continued throughout a region that has experienced hotter than normal temperatures all winter and on into spring of 2014.I have no idea why anyone would do this.
For example, the average April high temperature for the region of Lake Baikal is typically a frigid 28 F [...]
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:00 PM on April 24, 2014
So, not to go all CNN on us here, but since the temperature rise is drying out the taiga, wouldn't occasional fires burning up the understory be generally good for the forest overall, even if it destroys the canopy. If it clears the floor it allows the forest to become a wide-spaced "old growth". If it burns up the canopy too then it sets everything up for renewal, no?
Nothing wrong with a little harmless brush fire to clear out the undergrowth in most ecosystems, at least in theory; but from what I remember from college, tundra comes from a Finnish word meaning no trees.
I don't think brush fires in the tundra are all that beneficial to that particular ecosystem.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 8:38 PM on April 24, 2014
Nothing wrong with a little harmless brush fire to clear out the undergrowth in most ecosystems, at least in theory; but from what I remember from college, tundra comes from a Finnish word meaning no trees.
I don't think brush fires in the tundra are all that beneficial to that particular ecosystem.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 8:38 PM on April 24, 2014
my pop culture addled brain wanted to interpret the title as a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire, instead of to, like, the impending death of civilization.
All this melting is going to release the Others.
posted by homunculus at 11:37 PM on April 24, 2014
All this melting is going to release the Others.
posted by homunculus at 11:37 PM on April 24, 2014
The invasion of Ukraine is more like an evacuation.
I have this horrible feeling that things like this are going, at some point, to be things that actually happen. You can't just expect, say, the people in the Maldives to just sort of hang around on inflatable inner tubes. What happens when a "big" country with a strong military faces the same problem?
posted by Ghidorah at 3:43 AM on April 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
I have this horrible feeling that things like this are going, at some point, to be things that actually happen. You can't just expect, say, the people in the Maldives to just sort of hang around on inflatable inner tubes. What happens when a "big" country with a strong military faces the same problem?
posted by Ghidorah at 3:43 AM on April 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
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posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:09 AM on April 24, 2014 [8 favorites]