The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change

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The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 1, 2013 @04:53AM from the since-the-world's-been-turning dept.

Lasrick writes "Andrew Revkin at DotEarthblog posts an assessment of the drivers of wildfire trends in the American West. He shows a graph of fire activity for the past 400 years in the Yosemite-Mariposa area, and a rather surreal time-lapse video of the current Rim Fire now burning in and around Yosemite."

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so its not global warming? by alen · 2013-09-01 05:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

no way
no one is going to believe it though since you need something simple for people to blame everything on
1. Re:so its not global warming? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 05:10 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's a combination of factors, of which warming is one. Probably the best summation from TFA:
  
  "When you look at the long record, you see fire and climate moving together over decades, over centuries, over thousands of years," said pyrogeographer Jennifer Marlon of Yale University, who earlier this year co-authored a study of long-term fire patterns in the American West.
  "Then, when you look at the last century, you see the climate getting warmer and drier, but until the last couple decades the amount of fire was really low. We've pushed fire in the opposite direction you'd expect from climate," Marlon said.
  The fire debt is finally coming due.
  This is pretty much what you'd expect. Leaving aside the question of the human contribution to warming and what we can do about it, the fact of global warming is established to all but the shrieking denialists; it's also a fact that under normal circumstances, ecosystems adapt to any change in climate--sometimes better than others, but they do adapt. Our fire suppression policies for the last century or so have prevented what would have been the normal adaptation from taking place. So now we're getting it all at once.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
2. Re:so its not global warming? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 05:43 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Trees, over their life span, may sequester carbon. But forests do not. They are carbon neutral.
  This is true over the very long term--in the extreme case of Carboniferous forests, 300 million years or so; we're only now getting around to releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere by burning coal. Obviously in most cases dead trees rot and release their carbon faster than that, but "fast" is relative, and it's still a very slow process by human standards. And most of the carbon from a dead tree doesn't go straight back into the atmosphere; it's taken up by other organisms, and ultimately goes back into the soil as part of the organic waste that makes forest floors into fertile ground for the next generation of trees. Rotted wood, bits of smaller plants, bug poop ... it all looks like a buffet to a sapling.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
3. Re:so its not global warming? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-09-01 05:57 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Outside of suggesting increased dryness, they take a great deal of pain to point out how fire suppression is leading to vast increases in fuel, i.e. smaller trees, pines, brush, and other buildup, that used to get cleared out every few years by lesser fires.
  Although in the 1970s, they started doing small controlled burns, they're still burning less per decade than used to be burned per year naturally. This is all from tree ring and other data.
  
  --
  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
4. Re:so its not global warming? by taiwanjohn · 2013-09-01 06:04 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yes, it's ironic (and frustrating) that apparently "green" policies can often lead to undesirable results. Thus, it's nice when somebody comes up with an idea that solves the problem without them.
  For example, Allan Savory has a proven idea that, if adopted by even 50% of the industry, could sequester all the CO2 emitted since the industrial revolution in less than a decade. And, by the way, it has potential to mitigate the problem of brush fires too.
  Another example: Amory Lovins, who has a plan to wean us off oil within the next 40 years, led by business, driven by profit.
  There are lots of hopeful things happening. It would be nice if we would get past the left/right rhetoric and focus on the things we can all agree on. Unfortunately, "agreement" doesn't have enough "drama" to attract eyeballs to TV screens. Thus we end up with a spoon-feeding of "breaking news" every day with only a tenuous relationship to reality.
  [sigh!] Have another soma...
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
5. Re:so its not global warming? by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  The article has several sections suggesting that AGW is at least partly to blame.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
6. Re:so its not global warming? by TheLink · 2013-09-01 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  But why do controlled burns? Why not do controlled logging of the forest instead?
  If people are willing to consider that controlled burns are OK, why not controlled logging? Against "Enviro-Religion"?
  Either way trees and wildlife will die. But with controlled logging you can more exactly determine which trees and where, and perhaps ensure a higher percentage of the wildlife will get survive. And depending on how you use the wood the carbon could stay locked up for a lot longer than if you burned forests.
  Some tree seeds need fire to germinate, but I'm sure we can figure out how to trigger them more precisely when we need it and plant the seeds where we want.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
7. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 06:45 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Parent post is using some very incorrect assumptions.
  Rotting vegetation does not release all the carbon that was sequestered during growth into the atmosphere. Much of it is transformed into other living things: termites and other insects, nematodes, fungus, etc. A log in contact with dirt becomes more soil; it does not evaporate into gases. The carbon is sequestered for as long as the ecosystem remains healthy and growing.
  In a forest fire, a large amount of CO2 is released, but also a large amount remains in unburned wood (especially in the root systems) and in charcoal. The roots rot, as described above: that carbon is sequestered. The unburned wood above ground eventually rots as well; more sequestering. The char weathers into small bits over time and eventually enters the soil as biochar. That carbon is not only sequestered, but has become an important substrate to an enriched ecosystem. [One gram of biochar has an active surface area the size of a tennis court, which captures micro nutrients for slow release as the ecosystem can absorb them, and filters out heavy metals and other pollutants.]
  In a forest fire, the ratio of carbon that remains sequestered to carbon that goes atmospheric as CO2 is somewhere between 1:4 and 1:2. Not all of the carbon in a forest is burned in a fire; somewhere between 25% and 33% is retained, basically forever, in the ecosystem as it recovers.
  
  --
  Will
8. Re:so its not global warming? by PPH · 2013-09-01 07:07 · Score: 2
  
  A log in contact with dirt becomes more soil;
  
  Then I should be able to measure the thickness of that soil, its carbon content and deduce its age. But I can't. I can take a shovel into an old growth forest that has been here since the last ice age and dig through a few feet of organics until I hit rock. And it looks pretty much like newer forests. Some that have repopulated human habitats a hundred years ago or less. Forget the shovel. I can do that with the toe of my hiking boot in many places.
  Trees and other organisms consume the organic matter lying on the ground, incorporate it into their living structure. And then they die, burn, or rot. And something else eats them. There are a few notable places where organics accumulate. Peat bogs are an example. But forests in general? No.
  The only carbon credits that forests should receive is for every pound of carbon removed permanently on the back of a logging truck, used in permanent structures and then buried in a deep land fill.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
9. Re:so its not global warming? by Pino+Grigio · 2013-09-01 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  There are more people lighting more fires than ever before. Of course there are more bloody bush fires. What do you expect? This one was apparently started by illegal weed growers.
10. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 07:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Then I should be able to measure the thickness of that soil, its carbon content and deduce its age. But I can't.
  
  Of course you can't. You are not a pedologist or edaphologist or other soil scientist; you are not an ecologist, or biologist; you are probably not any kind of scientist. You are not even well-read about the subject you write about. So no one with any sense would expect you to be able to do any kind useful soil measurements.
  You are entitled to your opinion, which you have expressed in a manner which makes it very clear how broadly it is based in fact. Which is not very broadly at all; it is so narrow that it topples under its own instabilities. Nevertheless, it is a valid opinion that you are most certainly entitled to express. And which can be used by anyone to assess the value of your contributions to these discussions.
  
  --
  Will
11. Re:so its not global warming? by taiwanjohn · 2013-09-01 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  A log in contact with dirt becomes more soil;
  Well, some of it does, but how much depends on lot of factors such as temperature, humidity, insolation, shade, etc.. And some of it will also get oxidized into CO2.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
12. Re:so its not global warming? by Elbows · 2013-09-01 07:54 · Score: 2
  
  Fire burns up undergrowth and dead branches on the forest floor, but the larger trees mostly survive. Logging removes the large trees and allows brush to grow up in its place.
  So logging has a totally different ecological impact, and probably increases the risk of fire.
13. Re:so its not global warming? by alen · 2013-09-01 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  native americans used to do controlled burns
  issue is not the wood, but the smaller plants that catch on fire first in case of lightning or arson and allow the fire to grow. the trees are the last to catch on fire
  but some of the crazy greenies sue the idea of controlled burns out of existence and its now illegal
14. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 08:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yes, a good bit of the carbon in rotting vegetation ends up as CO2 eventually. But not all of it; much of it moves from part of one living thing to a part of another. Trees are predominantly made of cellulose, which is polymer of a simple sugar. Much of a rotting log is literally being eaten by bacteria and animals that can consume cellulose: this feeds the ecosystem at its base level.
  Temperature, humidity, and other factors affect the speed with which rot occurs, but do not affect the process or its eventual results. Some fraction of what was once a log becomes free CO2, but a much greater portion moves into the region's ecology.
  The conifer forests are sometimes described as "primary soil builders". Partly because their roots begin to break up the bedrock of mountains, but also because when they die, their products of decomposition feed the nascent soils.
  
  --
  Will
15. Re:so its not global warming? by MightyMartian · 2013-09-01 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  Translation: until everyone adopts my political ideology you can all go fuck yourselves, and me too!!!!
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
16. Re:so its not global warming? by Guppy · 2013-09-01 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  Rotting vegetation does not release all the carbon that was sequestered during growth into the atmosphere. Much of it is transformed into other living things: termites and other insects, nematodes, fungus, etc. A log in contact with dirt becomes more soil; it does not evaporate into gases. The carbon is sequestered for as long as the ecosystem remains healthy and growing.
  A rule of thumb is that roughly 10% of total energy acquired by an organism is transferred to the next trophic level, when that organism is consumed. While energy and fixed carbon aren't entirely synonymous entities, they are connected, and I would expect to see a similar order-of-magnitude effect in this case.
17. Re:so its not global warming? by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  I strongly suggest you read the article because it will explain all your questions, and more.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
18. Re:so its not global warming? by bosef1 · 2013-09-01 09:06 · Score: 2
  
  While I'm as much [citations needed] as the next guy; you could, you know, go through the trouble of explaining what this world-fixing solution that "industry / the green lobby / the government doesn't want me to see" instead of forcing me to wade through the YouTube videos. When you do it this way it looks like the worst kind of shyster "at home infinite electricity" solutions.
19. Re:so its not global warming? by PPH · 2013-09-01 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  You are not a pedologist or edaphologist or other soil scientist;
  Not a member of the high priests of ecology then, right? Not privy to the secret knowledge of the inner circles? I can only wonder about how many goats get slaughtered at the monthly coven meetings.
  
  So no one with any sense would expect you to be able to do any kind useful soil measurements.
  
  But I can operate a backhoe and a measuring tape. And I know what rock ledge and other non organic geological formations look like.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
20. Re:so its not global warming? by Mashiki · 2013-09-01 09:53 · Score: 1
  
  Although in the 1970s, they started doing small controlled burns, they're still burning less per decade than used to be burned per year naturally. This is all from tree ring and other data.
  Well if you want to see what type of disaster that's going to cause us, you don't even need to look at Yosemite. Just look at all the dead forest area caused by pine beetles. I drove through part of the NW and Alberta and BC 2 years ago, and it was mile after mile, after mile of dead trees in ripe tinder dry conditions.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
21. Re:so its not global warming? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 10:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Protip: when you have been thoroughly pwned, all you accomplish by whining about it is to embarrass yourself and everyone else around you.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
22. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  A rule of thumb is that roughly 10% of total energy acquired by an organism is transferred to the next trophic level, when that organism is consumed.
  Whose thumb is that? I'm not just being clever, I'd like a pointer to that discussion. It looks like I might learn something. In other words, citation needed!
  On a related note, it is important to recognize that the conversion of dead trees to other lifeforms in an ecosystem is not a one-time thing, but a continuous process. A ten percent rate of return is not a spectacular ROI for a speculator, but is quite good for the long term investor. In a climax forest, it probably represents the fishes, birds, and animals the forest exports to neighboring ecosystems.
  
  --
  Will
23. Re:so its not global warming? by __aaltlg1547 · 2013-09-01 10:49 · Score: 1
  
  Over a long period (hundreds of years) the forest is CLOSE to carbon neutral. Over a very long time, it's not, unless you count the fact that every billion years or so, some species will come along and burn all the coal.
24. Re:so its not global warming? by PPH · 2013-09-01 11:20 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  You embarrassed? I'm not.
  You can't answer my question either: Why does a 10K year old old growth forest not contain 10x the carbon of a 1K year old one?
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
25. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 11:52 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Why does a 10K year old old growth forest not contain 10x the carbon of a 1K year old one?
  Well, shoot. That's easy. The owls and the wolves and the raccoons and all the other critters carry the carbon away, to neighboring ecosystems.
  None of this stuff is compartmentalized. The only compartments in ecology are in your head.
  
  --
  Will
26. Re:so its not global warming? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 12:45 · Score: 2
  
  I'd take AGW arguments more seriously if they weren't so dependent on rhetorical fallacies.
  You've already amply demonstrated that no amount of evidence will ever make you take a scientific analysis of climate change seriously.
  
  Ad hominem attacks such as the above ("shrieking denialists") and appeals to authority ("97% of scientists") are ridiculously common.
  "Ridiculously common" is an apt description of the denalist tendency to shriek "ad hominem!" every time somewhat accurately identifies them, and their constant pretense that appeal to authority is at the basis of scientifically based climatological arguments.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
27. Re:so its not global warming? by PPH · 2013-09-01 13:18 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  Flippant answer: You still can't come up with an explanation.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
28. Re:so its not global warming? by RespekMyAthorati · 2013-09-01 13:45 · Score: 2
  
  So you prefer appeals to non-authorities ("3% of scientists").
29. Re:so its not global warming? by taiwanjohn · 2013-09-01 15:08 · Score: 1
  
  That's why I included Wikipedia links too. You can get a pretty good precis in text form from there.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
30. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-01 15:15 · Score: 1
  
  Flippant, but true. Do you hunt? Every deer I have ever taken has gotten its carbon mostly from trees. Maybe a little from munching on grasses and forbes, but mostly from browsing trees.
  The forest sequesters carbon, and exports some of it as living things. Or sometimes as venison. Yum.
  
  --
  Will
31. Re:so its not global warming? by khallow · 2013-09-01 17:06 · Score: 1
  
  You've already amply demonstrated that no amount of evidence will ever make you take a scientific analysis of climate change seriously.
  That argument hasn't been tried yet. The AGW side keeps overstating its case. The scientific analysis isn't as good as claimed.
  
  "Ridiculously common" is an apt description of the denalist tendency to shriek "ad hominem!" every time somewhat accurately identifies them, and their constant pretense that appeal to authority is at the basis of scientifically based climatological arguments.
  But then it doesn't materially matter to this discussion whether "denialists" (a blatantly ad hominem term right there) are "shrieking" or not via a keyboard. That's irrelevant to the "denialist" argument and hence, why it is an ad hominem attack.
  
  Here, once again, the considerable bias in support of AGW in modern research is ignored. It's worth noting once again that a researcher has probably helped his funding situation by tenuously tying AGW to a problem that would have existed as is even in the absence of contributions from AGW.
32. Re:so its not global warming? by Genda · 2013-09-01 17:20 · Score: 1
  
  So the majority of forest isn't burned, and hasn't burned in the past, every bit of cellulose sequesters atmospheric carbon. Yon can release all of that by burning down the entire forest, but immediately, new growth will take up where the old growth left off. What part of that is unclear?
33. Re:so its not global warming? by Genda · 2013-09-01 17:23 · Score: 1
  
  Not really. Adaptation, at least at the level forests take millions of years, centuries are simply too fast for forests to react to.That's part of the problem. What you get at current rates of change is extinction.
34. Re:so its not global warming? by sjames · 2013-09-01 19:53 · Score: 1
  
  No, they actually do store carbon. They just have a limited capacity like everything else and the storage is dynamic. When the forest grows larger or denser, there is more carbon sunk into it. When it gets smaller or thinner, carbon is released. A particular plant stores carbon for a limited time, then decays. The carbon it releases is taken up by the plants that grow in it's place.
  If you burn down a forest and prevent it from regrowing, the carbon remains in the atmosphere. If you allow it to expand again it takes the carbon back up.
  If you take the dead plant matter and heat it in the absence of oxygen, you can drive off the various gasses and leave behind stable charcoal which is carbon mixed with minerals.
35. Re:so its not global warming? by sjames · 2013-09-01 20:13 · Score: 2
  
  You forgot that soil can erode and even end up at the bottom of the ocean. You apparently also didn't know that a significant portion of wood ash is calcium CARBONate. When calcium carbonate crystallizes (such as by the action of rain water), it becomes limeSTONE. The word stone there is not a coincidence.
  The ability to operate a backhoe and a tape measure are useful skills, but it seems you also needed a bit more knowledge of chemistry and mineralogy to put all the pieces together.
36. Re:so its not global warming? by haruchai · 2013-09-02 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  "Wealth transfer to 3rd world countries" ??
  I'd say the West did a great job of transferring in the OPPOSITE direction for a long time - and still do.
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
37. Re:so its not global warming? by Optali · 2013-09-02 17:32 · Score: 1
  
  Amen! It's in the Bible!!
  "Thou shalt not believe in Global Warmin and temptations from the IPCC"
  It's all just a scam of the climate scientists who wouldn't have any other thing to do other wise. As it's a generally and obvious matter of fact that climate science is the most useless science on earth. BTW: What's it exactly used for, if I may ask?
  
  --
  -- 29A the number of the Beast
38. Re:so its not global warming? by RockDoctor · 2013-09-02 23:24 · Score: 1
  
  This is true over the very long term--in the extreme case of Carboniferous forests, 300 million years or so; we're only now getting around to releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere by burning coal.
  A lot of the Middle East's oil reserves are sourced from marine-derived organic matter laid down into mudrocks and limestones in the Cambrian, 500+ million years ago. So, burning that today, as we do, is returning carbon to the cycle after a half-billion year hiatus. (As Michael Caine would put it, "Not a lot of people know that!")
  
  the organic waste that makes forest floors into fertile ground for the next generation of trees. Rotted wood, bits of smaller plants, bug poop ... it all looks like a buffet to a sapling.
  A sapling, almost always via a fungus. People tend to overlook the largest single organisms on the planet, but they're tremendously important to nutrient cycling.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
39. Re:so its not global warming? by RockDoctor · 2013-09-02 23:37 · Score: 1
  
  You are not a pedologist or edaphologist or other soil scientist;
  Not a member of the high priests of ecology then, right? Not privy to the secret knowledge of the inner circles?
  Well, you certainly don't sound like anyone who's done any study of either ecology (what you're complaining about) or soil science (what the GP was talking about), if you're getting the two subjects confused.
  I suppose if your life consists of hitting things with a JCB (American : backhoe, though how you relate an anal prostitute to earth-moving machinery, I don't know. Or maybe posing the question clarifies the issue.), then it's hard to distinguish between the two, but if you actually get out of the cab and get your nose against the subject, you'll rapidly find yourself learning things you'd never have seen from the cab.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
40. Re:so its not global warming? by RockDoctor · 2013-09-02 23:43 · Score: 1
  
  You apparently also didn't know that a significant portion of wood ash is calcium CARBONate.
  Wellllll ... actually potassium / sodium carbonate. But that throws down calcium carbonate when it meets a source of calcium ions, which is likely to happen pretty soon in most natural environments.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
41. Re:so its not global warming? by RockDoctor · 2013-09-03 00:11 · Score: 1
  
  You can't answer my question either: Why does a 10K year old old growth forest not contain 10x the carbon of a 1K year old one?
  Your question contains major unstated assumptions which are not correct, and some which you're probably not aware of.
  Firstly, you're assuming that carbon sequestration is linear with the age of a forest ; it's not. The absorbtion profile is complex and variable with time as well as species (mix) and climate. Initially, as a forest gets established, a lot of carbon is absorbed as saplings grow into trees (and their root systems ; typically as massive as the visible parts of the tree). As the forest matures, absorbtion rates (typically) decline towards stasis, as decomposition of fallen wood balances absorbtion by growing wood (this is about when you'd be looking at taking your lumber, if you're managing for lumber production).
  Secondarily, you seem to be assuming that you'd be able to recognise deposited carbon from the cab of your JCB. Which is not a given : after a year of studying soil science, I couldn't tell the difference between a 1% OM soil and a 2% soil without doing an analysis - it's not possible. and volumetrically, much more carbon is stored in 1% and 2% OM soils than 90% OM soils. You probably could recognise a 90% OM soil from the cab of your JCB, but you still would have a problem to differentiate between that and a 75% OM soil. Which makes a big difference to doing the actual sums.
  But of course, you're not going to believe that, because only things that you can see from the cab of your JCB are important. Life disagrees with you, but that's your loss.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
42. Re:so its not global warming? by RockDoctor · 2013-09-03 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  But why do controlled burns? Why not do controlled logging of the forest instead? If people are willing to consider that controlled burns are OK, why not controlled logging?
  Because controlled logging implies bringing lumber out of the forest, which also means logging roads, and getting non-target trees / bushes / ground litter and ground-level plants either removed or severely damaged. Which then greatly increases the likelihood of destructive soil erosion.
  Enough reasons?
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
43. Re:so its not global warming? by Guppy · 2013-09-03 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  Whose thumb is that? I'm not just being clever, I'd like a pointer to that discussion. It looks like I might learn something. In other words, citation needed!
  Hmm... well, a good start might be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_web#Energy_flow_and_biomass
  
  It is the case that the biomass of each trophic level decreases from the base of the chain to the top. This is because energy is lost to the environment with each transfer as entropy increases. About eighty to ninety percent of the energy is expended for the organism’s life processes or is lost as heat or waste. Only about ten to twenty percent of the organism’s energy is generally passed to the next organism. The amount can be less than one percent in animals consuming less digestible plants, and it can be as high as forty percent in zooplankton consuming phytoplankton. Graphic representations of the biomass or productivity at each tropic level are called ecological pyramids or trophic pyramids. The transfer of energy from primary producers to top consumers can also be characterized by energy flow diagrams.
44. Re:so its not global warming? by khallow · 2013-09-03 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  Let's see - a loaded question with a false dilemma (there are other choices here) and an ad hominem (scientists who are treated as authorities when they agree with moderate statements of AGW don't suddenly become "non-authorities" when they disagree with moderate statements of AGW). I really honestly am looking for more here than shit arguments that a kid could pull apart.
45. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-04 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks! I have some reading to do now.
  
  --
  Will
46. Re:so its not global warming? by Will.Woodhull · 2013-09-09 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  I have done some further reading on food web, etc. While this thread is old, I thought it worthwhile to put my findings on it.
  While the biomass energy of each trophic level decreases to roughly 10% of the level it predominantly feeds upon, carbon sequestration is not coupled with this. If it were, there would be no carrion, crap, or bird droppings in the forest. Only the carbon exhaled as CO2 escapes the ecosystem; the rest is recycled through bacteria, fungi, and other saprophytes and effectively stays sequestered. For that matter, some of the CO2 that is exhaled is recaptured through photosynthesis before it has left the physical dimensions of the ecosystem. This stuff is not simple.
  The amount of CO2 that escapes a healthy climax forest is hard to estimate and harder to measure, apparently. Evidently over time, a lot of the fossilized carbon that man is burning is going to enrich many (all?) ecosystems: the Earth's total biomass will increase. Whether this can happen fast enough to prevent serious acidification of the oceans is a question. Whether human activities will prevent this from happening is another question. How the increased biomass will affect climates is also a question.
  
  --
  Will
47. Re:so its not global warming? by Guppy · 2013-09-11 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  While the biomass energy of each trophic level decreases to roughly 10% of the level it predominantly feeds upon, carbon sequestration is not coupled with this. If it were, there would be no carrion, crap, or bird droppings in the forest. Only the carbon exhaled as CO2 escapes the ecosystem; the rest is recycled through bacteria, fungi, and other saprophytes and effectively stays sequestered.
  You are correct that the relationship between energy transfer and carbon transfer is not directly proportional, but it is definitely related in a way that might be easier to understand if I explain it in an alternate fashion. Think of it this way -- Primary photosynthetic producers must capture and inject energy into H2O and CO2 substrates, to produce useful molecules which have higher energy (less stable) C-C and H-C bonds (and yes, many other types of bonds eventually, but this is where the initial captured chemical energy goes, before being converted to other things).
  No matter who or what they've been in, any bonds which are not eventually returned to their original state (oxidized back to H2O and CO2) represent energy retained in the system; if you were to somehow take all the left-over organic matter and oxidize it in a bomb calorimeter, you'd get an measurement of that "missing" chemical energy retained in the system that wasn't spent by all the various organisms (while they were busy eating each other).
  
  For that matter, some of the CO2 that is exhaled is recaptured through photosynthesis before it has left the physical dimensions of the ecosystem. This stuff is not simple.
  Yes, Carbon can get recycled many times before it "goes back" into a non-biological reservoir such as the global atmosphere. When coupled together with biological isotopic preference effects, you get changes in the Delta13C signal. Combining this with some other information, it thus becomes possible to get an approximation of how much recycling is going on.
Decrapified URL by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 05:01 · Score: 4, Informative

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/29/the-yosemite-rim-fire-in-the-context-of-forest-policy-ecology-and-climate-change/
Just in case anyone wants to actually, you know, read the article rather than being taken to a login screen.

--
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
1. Re:Decrapified URL by Solandri · 2013-09-01 07:56 · Score: 2
  
  Alas the NY Times seems intent on making sure nobody reads the story and has put your link behind a login page too.
  
  Here's the video at least. Not the down-ressed YouTube version included in the NYT article, but the original HD version posted by the National Park Service.
  http://vimeo.com/73310936
2. Re:Decrapified URL by Solandri · 2013-09-01 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  Here we go. Google to the rescue.
3. Re:Decrapified URL by __aaltlg1547 · 2013-09-01 10:45 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but you can't conclude from that alone that using "correlation is not causation" makes people ignorant.
4. Re:Decrapified URL by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-09-01 15:48 · Score: 1
  
  Hah! Very true.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
5. Re:Decrapified URL by hawkfish · 2013-09-04 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  Alas the NY Times seems intent on making sure nobody reads the story and has put your link behind a login page too.
  Why is everyone around here too cheap to pay journalists for the work they do? If what they do is so easy, why don't you do it for free in your spare time instead of stealing their livelihood? That is how labour markets work: competition, not adolescent rationalisations of theft (of their life force, not their "bits".)
  
  --
  You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Re:Potheads Suspected by bmo · 2013-09-01 05:18 · Score: 1

Fox "News" is bad for your brain. Honest to shit.
I couldn't figure out whether Ethanol Fueled's "anonymous" reply post was troll or not until I clicked the link. Ethanol Fueled's post needs more points and visibility.
Forehead.picard.gif
--
BMO
Re:Potheads Suspected by milkmage · 2013-09-01 05:41 · Score: 1

Ethanol is an idiot. There's a difference between growers and users.. stoners didn't go up into the woods a drop a lit joint.
The Mexican cartels can't successfully operate a camp fire.
Re:Potheads Suspected by ArcherB · 2013-09-01 05:56 · Score: 1

Fox "News" is bad for your brain. Honest to shit.
I couldn't figure out whether Ethanol Fueled's "anonymous" reply post was troll or not until I clicked the link. Ethanol Fueled's post needs more points and visibility.
Forehead.picard.gif
--
BMO
Yes, the post is obviously a troll. If you weren't sure, look at the grandma part.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Potheads Suspected by bmo · 2013-09-01 05:57 · Score: 1

And you and the previous guy need your sarcasm meters recalibrated and then go read EF's post again.
--
BMO
Re:Potheads Suspected by bmo · 2013-09-01 05:58 · Score: 1

Sarcasm and parody is not troll.
It's +1 insightful or +1 funny.
--
BMO
Re:the biggest driver is arson by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-01 06:10 · Score: 1

Parent references NWO, feel free to ignore everything they posted.
Re:Potheads Suspected by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 06:19 · Score: 1

Whether you like MJ or not doesn't matter to the topic in the story, the reality is Mexican cartels have been going up into the Sierras and farming marijuana on large acreages of land. The bigger problems with this are the violence, guns, dogs, and apparently fires that can trap innocent bypassers in the area.

All this is why I will never favor a bill that legalizes consumption but not distribution/production. Legalizing consumption without legalizing production is like giving money to Mexican cartels. That's why Colorado's MJ laws are better than California's.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:the biggest driver is arson by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 06:20 · Score: 2

Most wildfires in California are started by lightning. Watch the weather sometime, after there's a lightning storm in August, there will be fires everywhere in its wake.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:the biggest driver is arson by Black+Parrot · 2013-09-01 06:21 · Score: 1

With the NWO, it's just one scam after another. Even when each and every family that rules the NWO is worth over $1T, and some worth more than $50T, they are still wrecking the world for "moar".
Silly Pothead, the lizardmen aren't in it for the money.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Tree killers by jklovanc · 2013-09-01 06:40 · Score: 3, Informative

This is exactly what I said in the last article about this fire.
If you let fuel build up you create bigger hotter fires that kill trees and cause massive damage. It is evidenced by living trees with burn scars that trees can live through fires. When the fire get hot enough and enough bark is burned the tree dies. Another issue is that most tree trunks are bare a fair way up. This allows low burning fires to move through the forest and burn the brush. If these low burning fire get hot and high enough ther start burning the tree branches which also kills the trees. It also creates a crown fire which can spread rapidly and devastate large areas.
It is well known that proscribed burns are good for forests. We just are not doing them enough. We don't want to see blackened areas in our parks even though it is necessary to protect them from bigger fires.
1. Re:Tree killers by PPH · 2013-09-01 07:13 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  We don't want to see blackened areas in our parks even though it is necessary to protect them from bigger fires.
  We don't want some banker's hunting lodge burned down.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
2. Re:Tree killers by whoever57 · 2013-09-01 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  We don't want to see blackened areas in our parks even though it is necessary to protect them from bigger fires.
  Actually, you have this back to front. In the park, they have been doing proscribed burns and the damage in the park is less than that outside the park.
  
  --
  The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
3. Re:Tree killers by jklovanc · 2013-09-01 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  Less but not as good as it could be. They do less burning in a decade that happened naturally year by year. They are getting better but there is a long way to go. 90% dead is less than 100% but it is still unacceptable(numbers just for illustrative purposes).
4. Re:Tree killers by Reziac · 2013-09-02 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  Forests evolved to be burned, a sort of regular natural cleanup. It can be simulated by judicious logging. But one or the other needs to happen, or you wind up with destructive fires like in California... where fires have been suppressed and logging is a thing of the past. The current overgrowth is about 5 times what a healthy forest can support, especially in an arid climate... meaning 4 out of 5 trees are dead or dying, and ripe to be fuel.
  I've seen CA wildfires up close... before, during, and after. Clearcutting is less destructive.
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
5. Re:Tree killers by jklovanc · 2013-09-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  Clearcutting is less destructive.
  Agreed. In clearcutting the ground is not baked to a cinder and there is plenty of branches left behind to decompose and enrich the soil. I am not saying clearcutting is great but it is much less harmfull than a hot wildfire.
6. Re:Tree killers by Reziac · 2013-09-02 10:38 · Score: 1
  
  The other downside of an overly hot fire is that what does come back is often mostly weeds and brush, invasive rather than native... and it grows into a mat of fuel.
  Remember that fast-moving brushfire that burned about 700 sq.miles of eastern Oregon, about a year ago? I drove through it both during and right after the fire, and the next spring. Right after, it looked like a blackened moonscape, but come spring the native grass was taking over again and the sagebrush (which is an invasive weed, not native) had been at least temporarily exterminated. Grass likewise evolved to be burned (by a fast-moving, not-too-intense fire; it needs to be grazed or burned regularly, and doesn't matter which), and the sagebrush... well, being it was fuel in clumps, it burned hot enough to kill itself off.
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:Potheads Suspected by bmo · 2013-09-01 06:45 · Score: 1

Oh hay, an actual intelligent reply.
I totally agree with your second paragraph.
But the "it was pot growers" idiocy on Fox was just sheer lunacy. If it really was, the other news outlets would have repeated it. But they didn't. Because the article wasn't actual news, but wild-ass speculation with weasel wording right in the title.
--
BMO
Human Arrogance by billybob_jcv · 2013-09-01 06:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

The arrogance of our species is astounding. Our perceptual timelines are far too short and our reactions are far too erratic. Nature grinds forward - with or without intervention by humans - and with or without the survival of life on this planet. It's not clear to me whether we have the power to remove all life on this planet and make it just another dead, lifeless space rock - I suspect we do not - not as long as the oceans contain micro organisms that can evolve very quickly such that even we can't easily eradicate them. Either way - the universe doesn't give d@mn - and thinking we have the ability to "control" our environment is the height of folly. Our mindset should be to try to survive and live within the current state of the planet - whatever that current state looks like. If the mean temperature of the planet is increasing, fine - then instead of trying to stop the environment's current direction - figure out how to live with the new status quo. Adapt or die - it's as easy as that. Hopefully, the squid will do a better job after we are gone and the squid rise-up to take our niche in the hierarchy.
1. Re:Human Arrogance by MightyMartian · 2013-09-01 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not clear here. Are you actually asserting that human activity cannot have an effect on the climate, or more specifically the weather? I just want to get clear what you're claim is, because, on the face of it, what you just wrote is completely false. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're just ignorant, because the alternative is that you are immoral.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
2. Re:Human Arrogance by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 07:53 · Score: 2
  
  Our mindset should be to try to survive and live within the current state of the planet
  No thanks, I like having a house with four walls. My house changes the environment (especially when combined with billions of other houses), but I'm not giving it up to prove I'm not 'arrogant.'
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
3. Re:Human Arrogance by wjcofkc · 2013-09-01 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  "Luckily for those of us who have found Jesus, we know this is not true and that we alone among the masses, are saved."
  
  Judging from this statement, your request for clarity and logic will go unmet. Perhaps your question was rhetorical.
  
  --
  Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
4. Re:Human Arrogance by TapeCutter · 2013-09-01 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  The only "arrogance" I am sick of is the arrogance of secularists who think human beings can somehow affect the weather.
  
  Ever heard of "black rain", it falls from a type of manmade wether called "mushroom clouds". We have enough mushroom cloud machines to create a whole new season called "nuclear winter". Heating up the entire atmosphere/ocean system takes a bit longer but it's doable, in fact we have already pushed it up by a degree or two without really trying.
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
5. Re:Human Arrogance by Darinbob · 2013-09-01 12:55 · Score: 1
  
  Of course we can control our environment. It is trivial. At the small scale just start smoking in bed until your home (environment) catches fire. Big change, man-made. One person can overturn a truck carrying pesticide so that it flows into a river which poisons downstream land and farms.
  Now I know you're talking about very large scale environment. One human doesn't have a lot of power to affect the very large scale environment, but 4 billion humans do. Humans absolutely have destroyed many environments already. We've drained marshes and created deserts. Arrival of Europeans to America has caused massive change. Most of Europe used to be one large forest. We created the dustbowl in America in recent history. Humans have cause huge changes in the past and the evidence is very clear that humans are greatly exacerbating the current climate change.
  Yes, we need to adapt. But we need to stop doing the stupid stuff that is encouraging the climate change. You can't just keep using your 10mpg SUV and importing your food from the other side of the globe while shouting out the window "not my fault!"
6. Re:Human Arrogance by CyprusBlue113 · 2013-09-01 16:06 · Score: 2
  
  Of course we can control our environment. It is trivial. At the small scale just start smoking in bed until your home (environment) catches fire. Big change, man-made. One person can overturn a truck carrying pesticide so that it flows into a river which poisons downstream land and farms.
  Now I know you're talking about very large scale environment. One human doesn't have a lot of power to affect the very large scale environment, but 4 billion humans do. Humans absolutely have destroyed many environments already. We've drained marshes and created deserts. Arrival of Europeans to America has caused massive change. Most of Europe used to be one large forest. We created the dustbowl in America in recent history. Humans have cause huge changes in the past and the evidence is very clear that humans are greatly exacerbating the current climate change.
  Yes, we need to adapt. But we need to stop doing the stupid stuff that is encouraging the climate change. You can't just keep using your 10mpg SUV and importing your food from the other side of the globe while shouting out the window "not my fault!"
  Every time I see one of these humans can't change weather cranks, I just hear "Black Blizzard" in my head. Congress actually debated this very issue till one side said "look out the window, and you can see my home state of Kansas blowing by". Some people just refuse to listen to facts and cling to their beliefs until they personally experience just how wrong they are.
  
  --
  a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
Re:Potheads Suspected by PPH · 2013-09-01 07:19 · Score: 1

Outlaw sales. You can grow it. You can smoke what you grow. Anything else is a gift to either the Mexican cartels or eventually Archer Daniel Midlands and R J Reynolds.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
Re:Potheads Suspected by angel'o'sphere · 2013-09-01 07:19 · Score: 1

In fact it is BOTH!

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Even with AGW aside by estitabarnak · 2013-09-01 07:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

In this discussion, we can completely ignore global climate change and end up with the same general calculus. If you let fuels accumulate (as they always have and always will) by putting out every fire, you will keep kicking the can down the road until there's a fire so big that you can't put it out. Add in budget problems and the situation is ripe in California.
This isn't a matter of wacky tree-hugging liberals preventing logging from saving our forests either. Use of prescribed burning and selective logging are taught extensively at the UC Berkeley Forestry program. Selective logging is used for various management goals in the Santa Cruz mountains (including revenue maximization). Neither of those places have a history of being particularly conservative.
This isn't a problem that you can micromanage your way out of. You can't take out a few juicy trees and declare your forest safe from fire. Regular, prescribed burns allow for the kind of patchy diversity and general fuels reduction that prevent these big fires from happening.
1. Re:Even with AGW aside by PPH · 2013-09-01 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  This isn't a matter of wacky tree-hugging liberals preventing logging from saving our forests either. Use of prescribed burning and selective logging are taught extensively at the UC Berkeley Forestry program. Selective logging is used for various management goals in the Santa Cruz mountains (including revenue maximization). Neither of those places have a history of being particularly conservative.
  Except that the wacky tree-hugging liberals have been selling the carbon sequestration attributes of forests as an excuse to 'save' them. Another name for this carbon sequestration is 'fuel'. Fire is nature's way of maintaining a balance. And it will happen, either a bit at a time as prescriptive burns and natural burning of the undergrowth. Or it will happen every few decades as big, destructive fires, taking everything down to the ground.
  The modern view of forests as carbon sinks considers them as diverse ecosystems made up of multiple species of foliage occupying different levels in the forest canopy. But that is an artificial situation, created by the intervention of fire management policies. The photographs in TFA of Yosemite in 1890 and 1960 illustrate the difference dramatically. The 'diversity' that we have become familiar with didn't exist in the same form over a hundred years ago. It isn't a natural characteristic of a healthy old growth forest. And nature will swing the balance back. Quite violently, in the present case.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
2. Re:Even with AGW aside by estitabarnak · 2013-09-02 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  Connecting carbon sequestration with fire-excluded forest is short sited (well, for most forests in the US, anyway). While I'm sure there are folks all across the spectrum who are short sited, the point is that the liberal institutions that people point to aren't supporters. Equally myopic, however, is your view of forest management, history, and ecology in general.
  It's pretty well recognized (including by me above) that a management plan to maximize revenue and productivity is going to include thinning (and fire is the easiest way). Maximizing carbon production or sequestration doesn't mean maximizing vulnerability to fire, though. Not all fuels are created equal.
  In terms of history, you're forgetting what was happening in Yosemite (and had been for centuries and centuries): fire-based management. The natives of California (and this is by no means an exception) have a documented history of using fire to maintain a state in ecological succession. For instance, Quercus kelloggii, the California black oak, was valued for its acorns so the forests were managed to maximize their presence and production. So the "natural characteristic" you're referring to isn't really a model for how an unmanaged forest will look. But it's okay, John Muir made the same mistake.
  There isn't any permanent "end state" in a forest (okay, who's gonna come in and say "bare ground?"). There are lots of states which are local maxima in terms of stability, but those are all subject to stochastic events. There is no global maximum to which nature inexorably and violently drives. We've put our forests in a less-stable situation which can't be maintained long-term, but fire isn't nature's way of punishing us for putting two different types of trees in the same forest.
  I'm glad you agree with me about fire exclusion not working, though.
Re:Potheads Suspected by MightyMartian · 2013-09-01 07:44 · Score: 2

I'm going to blame Good Ol' Boys listening to Rush Limbaugh and lighting their farts on fire every time he says "Obama!"

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Parallels by argStyopa · 2013-09-01 08:16 · Score: 1

I'd say this exact same lesson - let small bad things happen at a natural rate according to natural processes - is worth reviewing in terms of the economy in an (allegedly) capitalist society.
Businesses fail. New businesses are born. That's how it works.
One cannot protect business from failure, and anything that's supposedly 'too big to fail' is PROBABLY the result of skewed former legislation that allowed it to reach sizes/dominance it otherwise naturally wouldn't have.
Just like forest fires...trying to prevent them totally is impossible, and just makes the consequences THAT MUCH WORSE in the end.

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-Styopa