"It sure was colder when I was growing up"
Warmer temperatures are causing massive pest outbreaks, such as the mountain pine beetle epidemic, and people are increasingly worried about forest fires near their homes.
My friend, who has lived in Prince George most of her life, tells me stories about how much colder the winters were when she was growing up. One year, it was so cold that her mother froze her fingers to the clothesline pins. Temperatures hovering around -50˚C were common, and apparently, many houses were buried up to their rooftops in snow.
On the other hand, when I lived in Prince George 3 years ago, I never shoveled that much snow, nor did I have the pleasure of experiencing a -50˚C winter. So what are these changes that we are seeing?
According to the BC government, temperatures in the central interior have risen, on average, 1˚to 2˚C in the past 100 years. Snowfall amounts are dropping, and rainfall is increasing. Warmer temperatures are causing massive pest outbreaks, such as the mountain pine beetle epidemic, and people are increasingly worried about forest fires near their homes.
Right now, I am living in Flagstaff Arizona, only 1 hour south of the Grand Canyon. I am visiting Northern Arizona University on a Canada-US Fulbright Scholarship, where I am working on issues of climate change and forest modelling with former UNBC assistant professor, Dr Stephen Dewhurst. I moved down here for 9 months to work with experts in the area of landscape ecology and gain experience with LURCH, a powerful computer forest model that Dr Dewhurst developed while at UNBC.
Here, climate change is happening right outside my back door. Flagstaff is in the middle of a severe drought, fire hazard is very high, and the water-starved forests are increasingly vulnerable to pest outbreaks. The similarities between Flagstaff and my research area in and around the Cheslatta Community Forest (near Francois Lake, BC) are surprising – and even a bit alarming.
For my PhD research at UBC, I decided to take a different approach to studying how climate warming will affect our forest ecosystems. Instead of just projecting how climate will affect us in the future, I am first exploring how climate has affected us in the past, using historical data on fires, pest outbreaks, forest regeneration, and weather station data that dates as far back as 1920. Given that the climate has warmed, how has the frequency of fires changed? Has tree regeneration been affected?
To help answer these questions, I am working with a number of researchers at UBC and UNBC, including Patience Byman, a UNBC master’s student, who is studying the effects of the mountain pine beetle attack on lodgepole pine regeneration in and around the Cheslatta Community Forest. We will link our research findings to give forest managers a strong sense of potential impacts in the near future and in the longer term. We also hope to provide valuable information to the Cheslatta people, to help them continue forest economic development even though 80% of the mature pine has already been killed by the mountain pine beetle.
When it comes to climate change, I know there will be no certain answers for any of us. What we do know is likely rooted in our past, and there is no doubt that ongoing changes are affecting our communities now, whether it is Prince George, Francois Lake, or Flagstaff, Arizona. |
|
Shown here in Flagstaff, Arizona, UNBC grad Kirstin Campbell is visiting Northern Arizona University on a Canada-US Fulbright Scholarship.
Kirstin Campbell
Kirstin graduated from UNBC with a Master of Science in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies in 2001. She is a recipient of a prestigious Canada-US Fulbright Scholarship, to study climate change and forest management as a visiting researcher at a US university. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of British Columbia. |
|
