Expect decades of turmoil, in the skies and on the ground

By CHRIS PETERSON / Hungry Horse News

The West could see massive wildfires in the coming years, fires even larger than what we're seeing now.

That was just one of several ominous predictions made by Nobel Peace Prize winner professor Steve Running during a talk last week in Kalispell.

Running, a University of Montana ecologist and forestry professor, said that in 1910 a huge wildfire ran from Coeur d'Alene to Missoula.

"I think that could happen again," he said. "When fires get that big, humans can't stop them."

Running points to data that the Earth, and Montana, are getting warmer each year. It's been happening since the 1980s, when scientists first noted that humans were likely causing climate change by burning fossil fuels that create carbon dioxide.

The fire season in the west is now 78 days longer than it used to be. Twenty to 30 years ago, high alpine forests didn't burn — there was snow covering them, or latent moisture from snow. Part of the West wildfire problems are due to fire suppression in past decades, but the climate numbers also don't lie.

Today the snows are melting earlier and faster. March in Montana is much warmer. The March temperature in Kalispell, for example, is almost 6 degrees warmer than it used to be. Warmer Marches mean quicker snowmelt. The faster the snowmelt, the warmer things get, because snow reflects heat, while the ground absorbs it.

Last spring was a cool one and the snowpack lingered into July. As a result, 2008 in Northwest Montana had few fires.

THE INCREASE in carbon dioxide causes the "greenhouse effect," which allows solar radiation into the earth's atmosphere, but traps more of that energy as it tries to escape. The net result is a slow, but significant warming trend. Climate is not weather. Weather is the day-to-day events. Climate is change in weather patterns over time — decades. And Northwest Montana, on average, is getting warmer.

Inch the mean temperature up just a few degrees across the globe and you move a bell curve called the "calculus of extremes."

The curve results in huge changes in the extremes — winters are no longer cold. Summers get brutally hot.

The heat also has an impact on forests. Hot, dry summers, even when they don't cause fires, weaken trees. Insects like bark beetles take hold and the cold winters — which normally keep their populations in check — are no longer as cold.

This results in massive die-offs of forests. In British Columbia, huge swaths of the province's forests have died.

"We've always had insect epidemics periodically," Running said. "But what we're seeing is unprecedented to entomologists."

Climate change will also have an impact on Montana's blue ribbon trout streams. As summers heat up and snowpacks disappear sooner, rivers warm up. It's not uncommon in dry years for rivers to be closed to fishing for weeks at a time.

To be sure, human consumption is also playing a role in river dewatering, Running noted, but as human populations rise and demand for water in the west increases, water wars are sure to begin.

"I think we're only getting started with the next round of water battles," Running predicted.

But global warming doesn't necessarily mean an overall drier Montana. There's an indication that winters could be wetter — albeit rain instead of snow. Rain isn't as useful, as it runs off immediately, whereas snow slowly melts over time. To date, precipitation across the state has been so wildly variable over the past several years that climatologists can't make a prediction.

RUNNING'S APPEARANCE to the Kalispell audience at Flathead Valley Community College was co-sponsored by the National Parks Conservation Association and Headwaters Montana, a local environmental group. Running won the Peace Prize as a lead author of the 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change Report.

The crowd of about 125 mostly agreed with Running's climate predictions. After all, most just look out their window and see the results. About 20 percent of Glacier National Park has burned in wildfires in the past decade and its namesake glaciers are rapidly disappearing.

But there were a few folks that were dubious of Running's predictions. They didn't argue that the Earth isn't warming. They argued that it's warming due to natural causes, not man-made emissions.

Running scoffed at that. He noted the world population, if it continues at its current pace, will top some 12 billion people and they are going to consume a vast amount of resources.

"The Earth (right now) can't carry the 6.3 billion people at the lifestyle we want," he said.

He also noted that no matter what people think, we're simply running out of oil.

"In a perverse way, high gas prices are our friend," Running noted. After years of increases, Americans are finally driving less that they used to a $4-a-gallon gasoline became the norm this summer.

High gas prices are forcing conservation measures. Folks are beginning to buy more fuel-efficient cars. And there is a push for alternative fuels and conservation.

It's economics as much as anything.

"This is going to be a wild few decades," Running predicted.