Forests under (mega)fire in the Pacific Northwest

Accompaniment to the Third Pod from the Sun Episode

Featured Image: “Forests under fire” original artwork by Jace Steiner. Used with permission.

Paper: Cascadia Burning: The historic, but not historically unprecedented, 2020 wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Authors: Matthew Reilly, Aaron Zuspan, Joshua Halofsky, Crystal Raymond, Andy McEvoy, Alex Dye, Daniel Donato, John Kim, Brian Potter, Nathan Walker, Raymond Davis, Christopher Dunn, David Bell, Matthew Gregory, James Johnston, Brian Harvey, Jessica Halofsky, Becky Kerns

The natural legacy of fire in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) is complex.  The variable geography of the wet, westside temperate rain forests, to the dry, high elevation forests beyond the Cascade crest make it difficult to find a “catch-all” description of PNW forest fires.  For instance, drier forests of ponderosa pines in eastern Washington experience more frequent, low-severity fires while the temperate rain forests of western Oregon rarely see fires.  However, scientists can reconstruct historical fire regimes and identify centuries-long patterns of burning related to precipitation, temperature, and ignition frequency to define what are historical patterns and what is modern climate change.  In 2020, multiple megafires (a wildfire that burnt more than 100,000 acres of land) broke out in the typically wet parts of Oregon and Washington, burning more than 700,000 acres combined.  This event is called the 2020 Labor Day Fires, and Matthew Reilly and colleagues have revealed these fires were likely part of historical regimes and not a product of accelerated climate change.

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Wet Feet? No problem: sandy humid forests grow best with access to groundwater

Pine forest in Governor Thompson State Park, WI, USA

Feature Image: Pine forest in Governor Thompson State Park, WI, USA. Yinan Chen, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Article: Groundwater subsidizes tree growth and transpiration in sandy humid forests
Authors: D. M. Ciruzzi and S. P. Loheide

Drought is often in the news these days, especially in places with arid and semi-arid climates where water is already scarce. While ecosystems have adapted over millennia to cope with dry climates and seasonal droughts, the increasing intensity and frequency of drought due to climate change and human demand for water can pose significant threats to ecosystem health and survival.

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