Redwood Reader

Two articles today indicate the acceletrating problems caused by rising temperatures. As more scientific reports come in we get a picture of the constasnt threats caused by our castoff pollution on the natural world around us. Loss of amphibians does not affect most people the same way as increased fire risk in the West does, whether as a home owner or a taxpayer. Yet the need is clear for a comprehensive policy to combat theese and other problems that are clearly beginning to snowball.
Climate change link seen in surge of Western blazes
Study correlates warming trend with wildfires
Dennis O'Brien, Baltimore Sun
Friday, July 7, 2006

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/07/MNG7JJR8521.DTL A new study indicates the correlation of warmer temperatures and increasing forest fires in the West. Scripp Institute of Oceanography and the University of Arizone foound fires increasing in number and size since temperatures began rising in 1987 in 11 Western states after going over 34 years of fire records.
"The researchers examined U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service records of every forest fire that burned at least 1,000 acres from 1970 to 2003. They found that of 1,166 fires in that period, four-fifths of them, or about 900, occurred after 1987.
They also found that air temperatures from 1987 to 2003 were 1.6 degrees higher than during the previous 17 years; that 6.5 times more acreage burned during that warmer period; and that the firefighting season increased by 78 days, the study says. "
While they do not claim human caused global warming is the cause, it gives an indication of what can be expected if these trends continue. Warmer springs and legnthier dry seasons are increasing the fuel load. We'd also point out it adds to the number of days of high fire risk. Examing fires that burn over a thousand acres, the largest increase has been in the northern Rockies between six and eight thousand feet elevation where earlier melting of the snowpack is the predominate cause of fire risk.
The study clearly shows rising temperatures are putting more lands at risk for longer times and that the period 1987 to present was the warmest since record keeping began in 1895. Forestry officials have debated whether warming or managem,ent preactices were responsible for the increase, but some areas in the northern Rockies are little influenced by management practices such as clearing brush, while the drying from warmer temperatures is a general trend over all eleven states covered in the study.
EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS
Frogs, toads and other species dying off -- new fungus magnifies environmental problems

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Friday, July 7, 2006
A virulent new fungal disease of amphibians is preading rapidly around the globe and adding an additional risk factor to already threatened amphibian populations around the world. First discovered in Panama and Australia only eight years ago it has been linked to to 122 extinctions in the last twenty-five years. Scientists from UC BErkely are now studying the disease in the Sierras, where the problem is killing yellow-legged frogs and Yosemite toads. 427 species are at critical risk around the worrld. The scientists say development and habitat loss are still the largest critical factors but the fungus is pushing the issue to extreme threats.
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, causes skin infections called chytrid disease in every amphibian species it attacks with absolute mortality rates of 100 percent. The disease is connected to warmer temperatures and is rampant throughout the Sierra Nevada Parks as well as around the world.
""The high virulence and large number of potential hosts of this emerging infectious disease threaten global amphibian diversity," Lipps reported this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The team found nearly one-third of all 5743 amphibian species are now threatened, 40 percent have had major population declines and 122 species have gone extinct in the last twenty-five years.
Locally, the Scoots Bar and Siskyou salamanders are at risk as the fungus ahs been found in their habitat, also threatened by logging in old growth forests. Environmental groups are pushing for protected status in U.S. Court, but the combined issues of rising temperatures and shrinking habitat pose a serious threat and the disease is rapid once it strikes.