If Sea Ice Melts in the Arctic, Do Trees Burn in California?

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

A new study links sea ice decline with increasing wildfire weather in the Western U.S.

Transcript

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0:43.7	Oil and water, apples and oranges, fire and ice. None of these things really
0:49.8	seem like they have much to do with one another. Or do they?
0:54.2	We found that more fire-favorable weather associated with declines in the
1:02.1	Arctic sea ice during summer can increase autumn wildfires over the Western
1:10.6	United States.
1:11.8	High Long Long is an Earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
1:16.3	in Washington State. So, we analyze a few decades of observations on wildfire
1:24.0	incidents, sea ice cover and weather conditions to identify a relationship
1:31.5	between Arctic sea ice declining and the wildfire risks. We call it a teleconnection.
1:38.3	Wang says this idea of a fire and ice teleconnection? It's not new. It's a lot
1:44.5	like the so-called butterfly effect, a term coined by meteorologist Edward
1:49.4	Lorenz in the 1960s to explain chaos theory. The idea can be summarized like
1:55.4	this. If a butterfly flaps its wings in one location, that could displace
	...

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