wildfire

Burned Alaska may cause more burned Alaska

Posted 10 April 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell The blackened scars that Alaska fires leave on the landscape may result in more lightning, more rain in some areas just downwind of the scars, and less rain farther away, according to two scientists. Nicole Mölders and Gerhard Kramm, both of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, study how changes in landscapes affect the weather. After Alaska’s fire season in 2004, when smoke befouled much of the air Alaskans breathed and a collective area... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch, Weather in Alaska |

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Fire is a natural part of the boreal forest ecosystem

Posted 28 August 2012 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell With their mushroom clouds topped with cauliflower crowns, plumes from wildfire smoke are again a common sight in Interior Alaska, which — with barely a sprinkle of rain — just experienced one of the driest Mays in the 100-year written record. Though it’s a normal human reaction to think of wildfire as a bad thing, fire’s occurrence on the landscape predates the arrival of people to the boreal forest by a long shot. The forest doesn’t function... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch, General |

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Recovery after world’s largest tundra fire raises questions

Posted 15 May 2012 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell The scar from the Anaktuvuk River fire of 2007, which scorched an area as large as Cape Cod. NASA MODIS image. Four summers ago, Syndonia Bret-Harte stood outside at Toolik Lake, watching a wall of smoke creep toward the research station on Alaska’s North Slope. Soon after, smoke oozed over the cluster of buildings. “It was a dense, choking fog,” Bret-Harte said. The smoke looked, smelled and tasted like what Bret-Harte has experienced at her home in... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch |

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