Intensity of Western blazes linked to warmer Atlantic Ocean

A look back across 500 years’ worth of wildfire history shows fire season intensity across Western
North America increases in direct proportion to, of all things, surface temperatures of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Given that the Atlantic warms and cools in 60-year cycles and the ocean is entering its next warm phase, researchers predict a decades-long increase in widespread fires across the Western United States in the coming years.

And global warming only will exacerbate that trend, the scientists say.

Kitzberger and colleagues reconstructed past cycles from tree-ring growth in forests in Finland, Italy, France, Jordan, Turkey, the United States and elsewhere.

They then dated almost 34,000 fire scars in trees from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental, finding wildfire most widespread in years when the Atlantic was warmest.

The Atlantic is already warmer as a result of global warming, with more of that warming on the way, too — purchased, so to speak, but not yet delivered due to the lag between industrial emissions and climate change.

So a key question facing those watching the West is how bad will fire conditions get in the coming decades.

Fortunately, starting to answer questions, establishing priorities — isn’t as difficult as getting past the know-nothings who would rather ignore uncomfortable questions altogether.