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Archive for July 25th, 2011
Climate Change To Spawn More Wildfires
Posted by Discovery News: Emily Sohn on July 25th, 2011
Discovery News: Severe wildfires are becoming common in the northern Rockies, as a result of climate change.
By the end of the century, large fires are likely to strike 10 times more often.
At risk are many types of plants, animals and people who live in the mountainous west.
As Earth's climate warms up, Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons are likely to experience large fires more frequently, according to a new study. Within just a few decades, big fires may become as much as 10 times more common...
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Warmer Climate Could Spark More Severe Yellowstone Fires
Posted by MSNBC: None Given on July 25th, 2011
MSNBC: Large fires in Yellowstone National Park could dramatically increase by mid-century due to climate change, which could create a very different park than the one people know today, a new study suggests.
An increase in the number of severe fires in and around Yellowstone National Park would not destroy the popular park, the study authors say, but it could reduce the park's conifer-dominated mature forests (pines and firs) to younger stands and more open vegetation.
"Large, severe fires are normal...
Climate-change-induced wildfires may alter Yellowstone forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 25th, 2011
Physorg: Climate change in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem will increase the frequency of wildfires and alter the composition of the forests by 2050, according to a team of ecologists who modeled the effects of higher temperatures on fire occurrence.
"We are following the long-term effects of fire in the Yellowstone area and encountering some lessons and surprises that challenge the way we think about fire in the area," said Erica A. H. Smithwick, assistant professor of geography and ecology, Penn State,...
Sea Level Rise to Put the “Squeeze” on Coastal Georgia
Posted by Climate Central: Bruce Dorminey on July 25th, 2011
Climate Central: Some 60 miles south of Savannah, Dorset Hurley strides into chest-high cordgrass on the mainland side of the Sapelo Island ferry dock. Standing in elevated muck on a recent steamy summer's afternoon, he gestures toward a tidal creek running along an isolated spit of road.
"At high tide here, we would be ankle deep in water,' says Hurley, an estuarine ecologist at Georgia's Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. He snaps off the end of a dead cordgrass blossom and looks east long enough...
More wildfires will transform US national park: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 25th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Climate change is likely to cause more frequent wildfires and may transform the forests and ecosystem of the iconic Yellowstone national park in the coming decades, a US study said Monday.
Dense forests dominated by narrow lodgepole pines trees are currently a dominant feature of the picturesque tourist destination which straddles Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
But more open spaces, grasslands and forests populated by different kinds of fir trees and shrubs could characterize it in the future,...
Yellowstone burning: big fires to hits world’s first national park annually by 2050
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 25th, 2011
Mongabay: An icon of conservation and wilderness worldwide, Yellowstone National Park could see its ecosystem flip due to increased big fires from climate change warn experts in a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). A sudden increase in large fires-defined as over 200 hectares (500 acres)-by mid-century could shift the Yellowstone ecosystem from largely mature conifer forests to younger forests with open shrub and grasslands.
"Large, severe fires are normal for this ecosystem....