Waugh! Waugh! Waugh!

According to the news, scientists have determined that global warming (what happened to the PC "climate change"?) is resulting in less snowfall in SE Alaska and parts of Canada. The diminished winter insulating snow results in freezing the roots of Yellow Cedar. There's a half million acres of dead or dying cedar in a wilderness area, and more in Canada.

What a waste - YC is good stuff! But no logging in wilderness areas.

Adapt or die! Natural succession of flora and fauna more suitable to the changing conditions will insure the world doesn't end.

Just hate to see all that rare, excellent lumber go to waste, but I guess bugs and fungi have to live too. Stupid is as stupid does.

There is plenty of dead and dying Yellow Cedar outside the Wilderness areas.

YC decline in SE Alaska has been noted for years; well before the current hysteria over "global warming, climate change" became the excuse for practically everything and the justification to attack something you didn't like.

A little research into a subject often termed "range of historical variation" will quickly show that changes in climate and attendant changes in vegetation patterns are to be expected; independent of any supposed influence mankind has on the climate.

Years ago I read of harvesting long dead YC because the stems are very resistant to decay. (I no longer have my file cabinets of reference material by tree species but at one time had considerable literature on YC.)

HELP!!! HELP!!! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!
Bear in You Know Where

sounds like someone better harvest it then, or it could be a perfect place for a big forest fire (im not familiar with how much rain that area gets but i suppose if its a lot that fires would be a non issue)

Lets see ... the last forest fire was in 1954 IIRC ....

I can't remember doing much with Yellow Cedar except firewood and selling green round logs to the Japanese (I think it is sacred wood to them) ....

We had a fire of a few thousand acres around Hoonah a few years ago, maybe around 2005, but it didn't amount to much. Generally speaking, a five-acre fire is "huge" in this part of the world.

Yellow cedar has some good uses, and I'm fairly sure they will continue to reproduce for centuries. Based on evidence, this going up and down has been going on for a very long time...well, at least as long as this era has been here. Which, relative to many parts of the world, isn't very long.

Dennis

what contains the fires up there (im a midwestern guy so bear with me) is it due to all the swamps? high water table etc?

How are the Polar Bears doing? Are they all hanging out on the beaches now due to Global Warming with a Coke and a smile. I have a hard time buying into the whole Global Warming concept as something new and man made.

Ever hear the term "Temperate Rain Forest?"

Basically, around here, there aren't really any fires. We get some little ones of an acre or two, but they will generally go out with or without us. (I'm talking about in the woods, not in the towns. The towns burn something regularly, but that's a different deal.)

Forest fires, per say, simply don't happen here.

Dennis

ahh i suppose the temperate rainforest thing makes sense, I guess never having been to alaska i was expecting stands of spruce/pine much like in the lower, that can be a tinder box at times.

Other parts of AK can be like that.

I used to agree with you and still do in a sense. While our global temperatures have varied in a cyclic way throughout time, there is no denying the effect man has on our world. With the aid of scientific research, we now can track the amount of atmoshperic carbon throughout our earth's history. The way we do this is with ice cores from deep below the artic crust. What we have found is that CO2 levels have been increasing dramatically ever since the bronze age. This may not sound like much of a big deal, cause after all, what's a little extra CO2 right? Shouldn't that make the trees grow better??? Anyways, this increase in CO2, along with other greenhouse gasses are very responsible for holding heat in our atmosphere. The way it works is very simple, but I never would have thought about this on my own. What happens is, as solar rays from the sun enters out atmosphere, they come in an assortment of short and longwave radiation, but mostly short wave. Anyway, what happens next is very similar to you leaving your car parked outside on a warm, sunny day. As the rays come in through your windows, as short wave radiation, they are reflected from your car's interior surfaces. The reflection of light from a surface is known as "albido". So, as the short waves reflect from your car's interior surfaces, the short wavelenggths are converted in to longwave radiation. Interestingly enough, longwave radiation cannot penetrate through your windows, thereby trapping the energy in your car, raising the temperature dramatically. The same thing happens with greenhouse gasses.

Now, before you all start calling me a pinko, tree hugging, commie, know that I don't buy into all the doom and gloom that is forced down our throats. I think that yes, the earth will continue to get warmer, naturally or not, and we all will be forced to cope with these changes. However, I see alot of possible benefits. One benefit with higher temps will be lengthened growing seasons and the incorporation of lands that were once
non-arable into arable land use types. This will hopefully allow us to produce more of the food and resources we need to hopefully support our out of control population. Just a hypo. Hope you guys can take this for what it's worth.

Jeff

As far as fires and wilderness area go, they can be a huge fire problem, because the typical USDA approach to wilderness areas is hands off. This often results in a huge build up of flammable fuels because land management in wilderness areas is so extensive (light, not there, not intensive) that fire is not used to remove these fuels. Meanwhile, fires that are not set by humans are seen as a bad thing and destroyed. So, what we have is a huge risk for fire in a lot of our wilderness areas due to the disruptance of a natural fire regime.

Having said all this, I am unfamiliar with Alaska and it's wilderness areas and natural disturbance cycles, so I have no idea what will be the outcome. Only time will tell.

I was wondering if you were taking an "Environmental science" class or something. So, I looked at your profile.


I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket now.

Deductive reasoning and common sense won't win you the lottery.

Jeff, I would suggest that you understand and remember several things when dealing with this question.
-Don't confuse cause and effect with correlation.
-Complex questions rarely have simple answers.
-Most people, especially college teachers, have an agenda
that they frequently champion without regard to the whole
truth.
-Just because it seems to make sense does not mean it
is correct.

Enjoy being a student and learn as much as you can from as many sources of information as you can. One source of information rarely if ever has all the correct answers.

A number of years ago I was down on POW reconning a highway project between Klawock and Hollis. The highway maintenance crew had just "hydro-axed" (mechanically cleared) brush and trees in the ROW that could be reached from the road. That freshly cut cedar smelled awefully good. I still like to take a sprig of fresh needles and roll them in my fingers and take a nice long whiff . . . .

If only I could get a car freshener with cedar scent instead of pine. I smell a business opportunity here!

What Notropis said...

If you had been in class 50 years ago, you might have all of the facts on "the coming of the new Ice Age." Global cooling was the rage...

But global warming will lead to the next ice age. The ice caps will melt reducing the salinity of the oceans and reducing the effect of the oceans currents causing the average temps to fall because of the reduced effect of the warm coastal waters blah blah blah. No offense but I read that book too. The truth is statistics lie and liars use statistics and by he time this all happens we will all have perished wondering what if. No one really knows and the polar bears will be laughing at us as the are eating tuna off the coast off Florida and doing just fine because their white coat keeps them cool as it reflects the sunlight.
I whole heartedly believe we do need to reduce our carbon foot print because it just makes sense not to chit in your own bed. I also believe we are not the biggest offenders either. I think this country and it's neighbors are a lot cleaner than it was in the seventies and it's getting better. Much like eating healthier it is a life style change and it has become taboo to be dirty and a polluter. Things are getting better and much like we are seeing the results of years of abuse now we will see the benefits of today's changes in years to come.

I just don't think the sky is falling just yet.

True. And if the sky is falling, there isn't a thing to we can do about it.

There are a whole lot of Chinee and Indian's out there, coming up in the economic wolrd, with no environmental restrictions at all, comparitively speakining.

China is building coal-fired power plants, with few or no pollution controls, at one every 10 days, or so I read somewhere.

Maybe we should nuke them in the interest of environmental policy? (Just kidding, in a black sort of way).

Actually, according to one report I read, every previous ice age was presaged by a short, sharp spike in global temperature.

Maybe everyone is right?

All of you are right, maybe.
Notropis, you are right when you say there is no simple answer. I was just stating the facts that there are a lot more gasses in our atmoshpere because of human activity and the physical changes inof light that cause it to act the way it does.

In the big picture, the earth is currently at teh apex of a warming trend and looking at a cooling in temperatures in the future. But as far as the human time frame is concerned, IMO, we are going to be looking at increaed temperatures in the forseeably future.
gotta
Muskeg Man, sometimes, you gotta cut down the trees to make 'em grow.

That may not be fact. That is an interpretation that may not be correct. The carbon cycle is quite complex. Lots of things put carbon in the atmosphere. Lots of things take it out. How much goes in and out is related to many things. Many of those things are not associated with human activity. Anytime you have a tropical storm or hurricane taking warm water into colder water you get a massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not only gasses in the atmosphere that must be consiidered when looking at the heat transfer between earth and space. Water vapor and clouds (liquid water) have massive effects but are rarely even considered when running the models. Dust and other particulate material is also quite important and has been the probable cause of rather dramatic climate changes in the past. Particulate matter is rarely considered in models.

Are humans having an impact on the global systems? Probably. You can't clear as much land or put as much stuff into the atmosphere without causing some effect. Are they the main driving influence on the global systems? That question has not been answered and may never be answered.

I just love the smell of Yellow Cedar sawdust in the morning.

I never said we were the driving factor, just that we are putting a lot of carbon in the atmosphere and that it does play a role in trapping more heat here than would be the case. I'm not trying to play the green card here. I personally have excepted the possibility of rising temperatures as a possibility for both good and bad. Humans will be able to make due, whatever the case is. Wild organisms in nature may not.

As Josie said "Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is."

[quote=Jeffrey]... just that we are putting a lot of carbon in the atmosphere and that it does play a role in trapping more heat here than would be the case./quote]

We are shifting a lot of carbon from one reservoir in the carbon cycle to another by burning fossil fuels. That carbon does not sit in the atmosphere but rather cycles into other reservoirs. How fast the cycle runs depends on lots of things. We don't know whether the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is due to humans flooding the system with too much atmospheric carbon dioxide or whether it is due to other factors not related to human activity. Warming can increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. You can dissolve a lot more carbon dioxide in cold water than you can in warm water. Is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide causing the warming or is the warming causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide? The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide seems to lag behind increased temperatures in most cases. That is why I warned not to confuse correlation with cause-and-effect.

Look at the entire system to try to understand how it works. Concentrating on one part of the very complex system can lead to very incomplete answers.