Annotated Bibliography
How did the wildfires affect climate change?
Introduction
Climate change has made many drastic changes our world within the last couple of years. From the wildfires in California to the rainforest in the Amazon and many other places in the world. The aftermath of the wildfires is spoken about briefly. To the vast majority not much information is given to make them understand how much the fires affect the people, animals, weather and temperatures people need to be made aware of these issues. While during this research, I found several sources to discuss on the effects of people, the effects on animals, effects on the weather and the effects on temperature.
Berwyn, Bob. “How Wildfires Can Affect Climate Change (and Vice Versa).” Inside Climate News, 7 Dec. 2020, insideclimatenews.org/news/23082018/extreme-wildfires-climate-change-global-warming-air-pollution-fire-management-black-carbon-co2.
According to Bob Berwyn in this article, wildfires account for 5 to 10% of yearly world CO2 emissions. While flames have become more severe in some areas, the overall burnt areas and emissions from wildfires have worsen universally over the last 20 years, according to Guido van der Werf, a Dutch researcher who studies trends for the Global Fire Emissions Database. Wildfires can have a significant impact on the climate as well as the CO2 emissions. According to Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, a rise in enormous flames, pushed at least in part by climate change, might disrupt the wildfire thermonuclear reaction.
When monitoring of the Copernicus Atmosphere Service more pieces of the wildfire-climate puzzle will fall into place once scientists examine data collected by a C-130 plane that makes daily travels near wildfires in the Western side of United States to collect precise information on wildfire emissions. An increasing body of evidence implies that wildfire smoke will add to the Arctic melting the ice in the foreseeable decades. Because the causes of fire are so near to the ice sheets, emissions from wildfires in Greenland or Sweden might greatly contribute to the burden of snow-darkening pollutants in the Arctic. Individuals can’t do much to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by wildfires after the spark is set. With time running out to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, every ton of CO2 counts, and understanding how catastrophic wildfire seasons are and how they impact greenhouse gas emissions informs individuals about how much it will have to decrease emissions in other places in the world.
According to Christine Wiedinmyer, associate science director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, in Colorado, understanding how emissions arise throughout wildfires might aid in the making of mitigation techniques to lessen their effect. “Without very strong climate policy, industrial emissions are likely to triple in this century. Against that backdrop, the climate effects of increased wildfires are smaller than the error bars in the climate effects of all that coal, oil, and gas,” Wiedinmyer said. This was useful for writing this paper because of its relevant and resourceful information for my research.
Stone, Madeleine. “How Extreme Fire Weather Can Cool the Planet.” Environment, National Geographic, 6 Aug. 2021, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/how-extreme-fire-weather-can-cool-the-planet.
Madeleine Stone in this article explains how dramatic heat generally leads to life-threatening wildfires, and this year is no exception, and with exceptional heat waves driving massive fire breakouts across the western sides of the United States and Canada, in addition to, throughout the Mediterranean and in Siberia. As well there may have been, further effects on the climate. Although these fires have caused dark harmful smoke in the atmosphere, Khaykin research explains that these dark clouds could cool down the climates warming. According to research headed by Khaykin and published in September, it described that the smoke dimmed the Earth’s surface for more than a few months, possibly the smoke generating an extra, yet minimal global cooling impact and an addition to the effect of cloud brightening. Furthermore, to creating a health hazard, a dense wildfire smoke near the ground sometimes blocks enough clear to lessen surface temperatures. Scientists have been measuring this impact since 1950 by associating temperatures on dense smoke days to temperatures predicted to come about in its absence. “The effect varies depending on how distant you are from the source, the size of the fire, and the amount of smoke pumped,” explains Robert Field, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. However, Field claims that when wildfire smoke is dense enough, “you may get a temporary 5 degree Celsius [9°F] cooling impact.” When compared to the public health effects of wildfire smoke, Field views these cooling effects as “episodic” and “almost an academic curiosity.” However, in stones article states, that a new study on the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season suggests another, wildfire smoke might chill the Earth’s surface.
Nagesh, Ashitha. “What about the Animals Caught in the Amazon Rainforest Fires?” BBC News, 29 Aug. 2019,www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49497857
Ashitha Nagesh wrote in this article about how the Amazon is said to be home to three million different plants and animal species, accounting for one-tenth of all species on the planet. Since 2010, it has been one of the worst cases for Amazon fires. At the time this article was written, Brazil’s space agency Inpe reported that almost 85,000 fires, had erupted in the Amazon jungle. Large creatures, such as jaguars, have the better chance of escaping since they can sprint fast enough to escape the fire in time. The first stage is to flee the fire, as Dr Alex Lees of Manchester Metropolitan University BBC News, informs that these creatures’ prospects of survival remain slim. When flames rage in a rainforest, such as the Amazon, they burn down a tremendous amount of trees that the forest’s canopy is pierced. Despite the fact that these creatures may at first flee the fires by taking safety beneath, According to Dr. Mark Bowler, an ecologist at the University of Suffolk, the rivers, and lakes in which they inhabit will turn out to be disrupted. Many others who rely on the forest for a living will also lose their jobs as a result of the flames. Many of the creatures hunted down by these groups, such as tortoises and capybaras, are low to the ground are expected to have died in the flames, according to Nasgesh. Attempting to hunt a small number of surviving animals is nearly difficult since the ground is too raucous for hunters to travel through the forest soundlessly.
Gonzaga, Diego. “Fires Are Raging in the Amazon-Again.” Greenpeace International, 22 July 2020, www.greenpeace.org/international/story/44159/fires-brazil-bolsonaro-amazon-deforestation-2020/.
Diego Gonzaga writes in this article about the wildfires in Brazil back in 2019. He stated that more than 1 million hectares of the forest were burned, but it was believed it was much more. The destruction of the wildfire was horrendous, losing the forest put the biodiversity at risk to extinction and harming the many lives of the people such as certain indigenous tribes who lived in the rainforest and who depend on their living from the rainforest. Diego Gonzaga process to talk about how the indigenous people who live in the rainforest, these groups of people health’s has been more at risk because of COVID-19 and as well as the smokes they inhaled at some point though out the fires. The smoke from the fires have aggravate their respiratory system at a time when they need it the most and when access to medical help has been restricted in isolated sections of the Amazon. Diego explains to fully maintain the forest and its peoples, the Brazilian leadership must adequately support environmental societies, strengthen environmental laws, in addition to defend Indigenous Peoples’ rights. He believes we should demand that governments and corporations stop doing business with forest killers and instead invest in and promote resilient economies that prioritize environment and people.
Conclusion
There have been many critical effects because of the wildfires. The forests burns produce carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions, that make the climate change worst. If more of the land is charred by wildfires, greenhouse gas emissions will increase warm the air and generating rising seas, storm outpourings and ice sheets melting. I believe this research is important because not many people nowadays pay attention to all different types of new information such as one like I have researched, everyday new information slips through the cracks specifically about environmental issues because people are not interest but they should worry because we do not have a lot of time on this earth if our plane keeps getting warmer and cause more global catastrophes. This could inform a much other old audience such as people in their twenties and thirty’s who can do something to help our environment and encourage and educate others about this kind of information and tragedies that are going on in the world. We only have till couple of years to help the earth survive but if we begin now to try to improve and attempt to educate ourselves on how to save it or make it better, for the animals, nature such the forest, lakes, and oceans and ourselves. We can help to preserve the earth lifespan for a while longer. In all of the sources I have provided, explains what happens to our environment and how can many be affected by the wildfires and how it affects the animal in the forest, in their living spaces and the health of humans which is something we should pay attention to and be aware of.
