Can Newfoundland and Labrador expect more intense wildfires?
When former Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said icebergs off Newfoundland are a dangerous sign of climate change a couple of years ago, the snark-o-meter went off the charts. It is simply amazing that she can say to the public that a warming climate produces more icebergs near N.L., sneered one observer on Twitter. That was certainly not what happened in 1912 and it is not happening now. The North Atlantic is presently cooling.  Others were more mocking: Sadly, McKennas warning came 107 years too late to save the Titanic.  In fact, the increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a well-documented consequence of climate change. Moreover, recent research has raised alarms about the continued viability of life-sustaining ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. Arctic ice is not sea ice, and its increased melting is changing the salinity of surface water in the North Atlantic. This, in turn, is disrupting the cycle of currents as more-dense ocean water cools, sinks and circles back to the south as it reaches its northern extreme. Like the physics of water, the physics of fire is also complex. So, while there is a more clear connection between extreme wildfire events in California, Australia and Western Canada, the connection is less clear in the Atlantic region. We have so much rain, the forest is wet, Atanu Sarkar, a professor of environmental and occupational health, explained in an interview Monday. However, he said, that doesnt mean that will still be the case years from now. Labrador experienced one of its worst wildfires ever in 2013. Maybe after a few years, when climate change becomes more obvious and more frequent, therell be less rain, and that will be ideal conditions for forest fires, Sarkar said. Of more concern in this province are how changes in climate may hasten the arrival of invasive species of insects and change the balance of plant life. No forestry system is immune to climate change, he said. Some have better resilience and some have low resilience.  And plant life can affect animal life. Theres an imbalance, he said, and it (can) ultimately be a big issue for plant-eating animals because of a lack of availability of certain species.  Its an interconnectivity best understood by Indigenous communities. For Indigenous people, the forest is an important part of their culture and their food, and their health and wellness.  Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... There are other factors at play in assessing changes in wildfire activity across the country. Natural Resources Canada notes that changes in land use, vegetation composition and firefighting (suppression) efforts all play a role in wildfire activity, making it difficult to measure the effect of climate change. But while increased precipitation may have a dampening effect in the Atlantic region, the same isnt true for other areas. When the town of Fort MacMurray narrowly escaped incineration by a wildfire in 2016  one of Albertas worst  scientists said the trend should be expected to continue. We know from looking at weather records from the last 100 years that the fire season is lengthening, and intense fires like this are increasingly common, Marc-Andr Parisien, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, told Macleans magazine at the time. Last week, the B.C. town of Lytton was destroyed by fire after an unprecedented heat dome crept north along the west coast of the continent. Asked whether she found the phenomenon surprising, Dr. Courtney Howard was frank. No. Thats exactly what we would have predicted to happen based on the temperature projections for the long term, she said in a phone interview from Yellowknife. Thats the type of event that we know is going to become more likely.  Howard, an emergency room doctor, has been educating the public on the impacts of climate change on health for several years. Because of its northern geography, Canada is seeing double the warming rate than the global average. That would mean an increase of at least 6 C by 2100 if warming continues at its current rate. We dont know if we can adapt in a healthy way to those really high temperatures by the end of the century, Howard said.