<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEBSzo9ZM2AMv7gh3s5Z3F4sqGQgEKhAIACoHCAow2Nb3CjDivdcCMJ_d7gU?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">U.S. must go ‘well beyond Paris commitments’ to avert catastrophic global warming, warns scientist</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Scientist Michael Mann explained why the U.S. must go “well beyond those Paris commitments” as President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement ...</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMNjW9wow4r3XAg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">CNBC</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Grist Jan 16, 2021</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class=""></b></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class="">2020 was the hottest year on record. We’ll remember it as one of the century’s coldest.</b></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://grist.org/climate/2020-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-well-remember-it-as-one-of-the-centurys-coldest/" class="">https://grist.org/climate/2020-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-well-remember-it-as-one-of-the-centurys-coldest/</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class="">Excerpt :</b> </span><span style="color: rgb(9, 34, 43);" class=""> For </span><a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/november-2020-year-ending-it-began-hot-streak" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; color: #054a61" class="">44 years in a row</span></a><span style="color: rgb(9, 34, 43);" class=""> now, the globe has been hotter than the 20th century average. The world’s </span><a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/14/2020-was-hottest-year-on-record-nasa-scientists-say/" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; color: #054a61" class="">hottest seven years</span></a><span style="color: rgb(9, 34, 43);" class=""> on record have all taken place since 2014, the 10 warmest years have occurred in the past decade and a half.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(9, 34, 43);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">Each year, these monumental milestones seize the spotlight for a moment or two and then quickly fade away.</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Tired of this cycle, Andrew Dessler, a professor in the geosciences department at Texas A&M University, has created a <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewDessler/status/1348672668552327171/photo/1" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; color: #000000" class="">template auto-response</span></a> for the requests he receives from journalists to comment on these records each year. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(9, 34, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; color: #000000; background-color: #fffb00" class="">“Thank you for emailing me asking for comment about 20__ being one of the hottest years on record,” it reads. “Here is a comment you can use for your story: </span><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">‘Every year for the rest of your life will be one of the hottest in the record. This means that 20__ will end up being among the coolest years of this century. Enjoy it while it lasts.’”</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(9, 34, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(9, 34, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Dessler isn’t trying to be curmudgeonly. He’s pointing out something scientists have known since the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; color: #054a61" class="">late 19th century</span></a>: If you dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate warms. “It’s basic physics,” Dessler told Grist. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(9, 34, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""><a href="https://grist.org/climate/2020-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-well-remember-it-as-one-of-the-centurys-coldest/" class="">https://grist.org/climate/2020-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-well-remember-it-as-one-of-the-centurys-coldest/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">"Ongoing reductions to groundwater storage are drying groundwater wells in the western US, and this manifestation of water scarcity warrants innovative groundwater management transcending status quos."</span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">D. Perrone and S. Jasechko. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">Dry groundwater wells in the western United States. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">Environmental Research Letters 12 (2017) 104002</span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">OPEN ACCESS</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8ac0" class="">http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8ac0<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 105, 217);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiECJMSgsEJckJao29V4So5cMqGQgEKhAIACoHCAow4Zn5CjCu8uACMLTRlgY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">Texas and California built different power grids, but neither stood up to climate change<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Texas and California may be worlds apart in their politics and climate policies, but they have something in common: Extreme weather crashed their power grids ...</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 105, 217);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMOGZ-QowrvLgAg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">POLITICO<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 105, 217);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEBXvJU4S7JnGLI7W5SD0LUYqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzwwloEY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">How Texas’ Drive for Energy Independence Set It Up for Disaster<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Texas has refused to join interstate electrical grids and railed against energy regulation. Now it's having to answer to millions of residents who were left without ...</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 105, 217);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMI7rigMwlq88?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">The New York Times<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class="">Page 181 :</b> “if Americans were asked point blank whether they would agree to reduce their energy consumption by one-half, many would probably recoil in apprehension and reject the idea. Yet energy consumption in 1960 was about half of what is now [ 1970 ]. Many of us remember 1960. Surely we had a civilized country then, with roads, electricity, entertainment, and so on. Yet we we were consuming half the energy …. Have we, by doubling our energy consumption, doubled our happiness?”</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The Conserver Society. Harper Colophon Books. Copyright 1979 by Kimon Valaskakas et al</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEFqyNMFlElC2cMJ5T-2P75IqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowndaaCzDI4LIDMJLv2gY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">Iowa energy company explains why wind turbines don't freeze in Iowa cold</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">A spokesperson with MidAmerican Energy Company said they install cold-weather packages into their wind turbines to help them stay warm as temperatures get ...</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMJ3WmgswyOCyAw?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">KCRG</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">14 hours ago</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEOD1sKtfFJ3Z76LNBOde44gqIwgEKhoIACIQd3d3Lm1hc2hhYmxlLmNvbSoECAowCDDfsoMG?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">Why wind turbines thrive in Antarctica and colder places than Texas</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Wind turbines, which weren't responsible for the Texas energy crisis, regularly operate in freezing conditions and can be weatherized for wintry places.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/publications/CAAiEHd3dy5tYXNoYWJsZS5jb20qBAgKMAg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class="">Mashable</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">5 hours ago</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMn2faqVA7fsxEnGN17Cz2IqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowyNj6CjDyiPICMJyFxQU?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class=""></a></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">*********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">NEWS RELEASE 17-FEB-2021</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(43, 43, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class="">Climate change and fire suppression</b></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><i class="">Researchers investigate the complex factors that will fuel the wildfires of the 21st century</i></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(43, 43, 43); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uoc--cca021621.php" class="">https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uoc--cca021621.php</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78e/pdf" class="">https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78e/pdf</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">————————— Pull quote —————————</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">"Forest-density reduction is often a favored approach in regions where decades of fire suppression have significantly increased fuel loads. However, density reductions sometimes have unintended consequences, as Tague and her colleagues detailed in a paper recently published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change <<<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2020.591162/full" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" class="">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2020.591162/full</span></a>>>. Under certain conditions, this practice can encourage vegetation growth, which can lead to greater water use by plants and potentially increasing fire risks.”</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">—————————————————————————————</span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The unprecedented and deadly blazes that engulfed the American West in 2020 attest to the increasing number, size and severity of wildfires in the region. And while scientists predict the climate crisis will exacerbate this situation, there's still much discussion around its contributing factors.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">With this in mind, scientists at five western universities, including UC Santa Barbara, investigated the effects of human-driven climate change and more than a century of fire suppression, which has produced dense forests primed to burn. </span><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #fffb00" class="">Their research, published in the journal <i class="">Environmental Research Letters</i></span><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><i class=""> </i><<<a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78e/pdf" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" class="">https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78e/pdf</span></a>>>, confirms the importance of both factors in driving wildfires, but revealed that their influence varies, even within the same region of the Western U.S.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">"We wanted to know how climate change and fire suppression, each in different ways, can influence fire regimes," said coauthor Naomi Tague, a professor of ecohydrology and ecoinformatics at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The scientists, led by Assistant Professor Erin Hanan at the University of Nevada, integrated three research methods to tackle these questions. They employed remote sensing data to characterize past fires. They harnessed climate models to determine the role climate change has played in local meteorological patterns, including temperature, rainfall and humidity. And they used an earth-system model to simulate how climate, water, vegetation and wildfire interact over space and time.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The scientists drew on climate records developed through a National Science Foundation-funded initiative called FireEarth and a watershed model called RHESSys-Fire that originated in the Tague Team Lab at UC Santa Barbara. Funding from another NSF initiative had enabled Tague's lab to incorporate advances to this model that represent the climate impacts on fire, as well as hydrology and vegetation growth. The authors applied these techniques to data gathered across complex terrain in two mixed-conifer watersheds in the Idaho Batholith and the Central Rocky Mountains.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">The results were clear, but far from straightforward. </span><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">"For some locations, we found that climate change increased fire activity," said Tague, who led the SERI-Fire initiative, "but surprisingly, in other locations, climate change actually decreased fire activity."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The team found that climate change increased burn probability and led to larger, more frequent fires in wetter areas while doing the opposite in more arid locations. In areas of intermediate soil moisture, the effects of climate change and fire suppression varied in response to local trade-offs between flammability and fuel loading.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">The scientists were surprised that climate change could decrease the severity of fires under certain conditions, but Tague offers an explanation. "Climate change can reduce the growth and development of fuels," she said, "particularly in more arid sites."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">These are crucial insights in our efforts to understand and manage wildfires. "This paper presents one of the first wildfire attribution studies at the scale of actionable management," said lead author Erin Hanan, "and shows that local responses to climate change and fire suppression can be highly variable even within individual watersheds."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #fffb00" class="">"This study is really the first to directly compare the independent effects of climate change versus fire suppression, which you can only do using dynamic models," added UC Merced Assistant Professor Crystal Kolden, who led the FireEarth initiative. <b class="">"We were actually surprised that the climate change signal was so clear; that's kind of rare. </b>And even though our study was limited to Idaho, the forest types and climate we modeled are found throughout the western U.S., so they are good analogs for many other watersheds."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">In addition to illuminating the roles of major wildfire factors, the research also boosts methodology. "This paper moves fire modeling and prediction forward by looking inside watersheds and disentangling the many factors that influence how fire regimes will evolve in the coming decades," said Tague.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">While climate change remains a major component -- increasing the frequency and intensity of large wildfires across the globe -- there are many regions where past suppression efforts still play an important role. </span><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #fffb00" class="">Forest-density reduction is often a favored approach in regions where decades of fire suppression have significantly increased fuel loads. However, density reductions sometimes have unintended consequences, as Tague and her colleagues detailed in a paper recently published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Under certain conditions, this practice can encourage vegetation growth, which can lead to greater water use by plants and potentially increasing fire risks.</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(255, 38, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">********************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">“The emphasis on consensus in IPCC reports, however, has put the spotlight on expected outcomes,…"</span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">“...it is now equally important that policy-makers understand the more extreme possibilities that consensus may exclude or downplay.”</span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">Michael Oppenheimer, Brian C. O’Neill, Mort Webster, Shardul Agrawala . The Limits of Consensus. Science SEPTEMBER 14 2007</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class=""></b></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEBVvS_LE-q1HC6vkwkvjgpIqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowyNj6CjDyiPICMK_dxAU?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen" class=""></a></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 115, 232); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(32, 33, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 17px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class=""></b></span><br class=""></div><div class="">
<div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" class="">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" class=""><b class="">Page 181 :</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“if Americans were asked point blank whether they would agree to reduce their energy consumption by one-half, many would probably recoil in apprehension and reject the idea. Yet energy consumption in 1960 was about half of what is now [ 1970 ]. Many of us remember 1960. Surely we had a civilized country then, with roads, electricity, entertainment, and so on. Yet we we were consuming half the energy …. Have we, by doubling our energy consumption, doubled our happiness?”</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" class="">The Conserver Society. Harper Colophon Books. Copyright 1979 by Kimon Valaskakas et al</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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