If human activity is melting the arctic ice cap, how can it also be decreasing wildfires? Conventional wisdom suggests that as the earth warms and population rises, the number of wildfires should skyrocket.
However, new research has recently found that humans haven't had the devastating impact you might expect. Between 1870 and 1970, human behavior actually decreased the number of wildfires worldwide, even as the earth warmed and population continued to rise.
Jennifer Marlon, a doctoral student in geography, collaborated with researchers from seven universities in the study of charcoal records from lakebeds around the world. She found that levels of wildfire activity soared with the rise of industry between roughly 1750 and 1870.
The trend then mysteriously began to reverse.
The team determined that between 1870 and 1970, fires decreased partly due to fire suppression tactics, but also due to increasing land clearance for agriculture and development. That's not necessarily good news. It was no longer a surge in wildfires that was consuming trees and wild lands; it was us.
Though the team attributes the decrease in wildfires to human activity, Marlon also points out that we don't yet have data from the last 38 years, when global climate change became obvious and late summer fire seasons became increasingly intense. The dust -- or the charcoal ash -- from this dramatic period has yet to settle.
- Chrisanne Beckner
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