New Normals
When I wrote my last post, a cheeky diary of an extreme hazard day, I was on a six-day streak of high and extreme hazard. Feeling fatigued and anticipating that rain was soon to come, I thought it would be fun to document what extreme was like at the fire lookout. From reviewing the extensive backlog of weather data sheets from my lookout, I was anticipating June and July rain to mostly bring an end to the string of continuous high hazard days. I guess I spoke too soon, because this streak would continue for another two weeks, totalling to 25 consecutive days of heat, wind, and smoke.
Looking at the historical lookout data, the average maximum June temperature recorded at my site in the past three decades was just under 25° C, reaching a high of 30° C in 2002. As temperatures soared across western Canada, I watched my dry bulb thermometer peak out on June 30th at a toasty 41° C. Similar record-setting temperatures were observed across the country. As weeks of dry heat pass between bouts of rain, the open skies have been transformed into a hazy fever dream. The buildup of ozone combined with heavy cover of smoke has obscured the usual 40+ km of visibility in my tower and reduced it down to a mere 3 km. The freedom I previously felt while sitting in the sky has largely been replaced by claustrophobia.
Long-time fire rangers in my district have pointed out to me, that this is an unusually hot summer. During the peak of the heat, I got a call from one of the wildfire technologists, checking in on me and assuring me once more, that I was experiencing something unusual and unprecedented. Climate normals are running 30-year averages in weather patterns (temperature, humidity, precipitation) for a given time of the year. If the last thirty years were ‘normal’, what does that make this year? As new data entries fill the cabinet of yearly lookout weather journals, will this year be truly unprecedented, or is this our trajectory towards a new normal?
For weeks, I watched with anticipation as the fireweed in my yard started budding out. But as temperatures continued to rise without a drop of rain, I watched the fireweed become sadly yellow and wilt in the weeks to follow, as my own rainwater collection also began running concerningly low. Without rain, the usual lusciousness of the boreal in the peak of summer has been dotted with brown and yellow vegetation that has all by dried up and died due to heat and lack of rain. Data collected from between 1991-2020 show that June precipitation has ranged from 12 to 294 mm, with an average 115 mm and July precipitation has ranged from 21 to 283 mm with an average of 118 mm. This past June, my rain gauge saw just under 27mm of rain - the second lowest on record. With just under 76mm of rain in July, this is panning out to be one of the driest summers in the past three decades.
This year at the tower is panning out to be one of the driest ones in recent decades.
The few rain showers that have come and gone the past couple of months have done little to quench the forest’s thirst. The reductions to the Fire Weather Index, an indicator of wildland fire potential, have been minimal and short-lasting. With little precipitation and low relative humidity values, moisture content of fuels remains low, and as high temperatures persist in tandem with windy conditions, flammability and rate of spread have been climbing steadily throughout the season. Instead of bringing relief, the rain showers this summer around my lookout area have primarily been carried in by towering cumulonimbus storm clouds, showering the forest with as much lightning as rain. After weeks of vigorous, dry heat, even the “Asbestos Forest” aspen stands, broadleaf deciduous trees characterized by thick bark and high water content that usually act as a firebreak, are susceptible to fire.
When I sat down to start writing this in mid-July, over 90 wildfires were burning across Alberta. In my memory, each summer the past few years has been some sort of record-breaking fire year in some way or another in the West - Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, even the coastal rain forests of Vancouver Island have seen flames. There hasn’t been rain on the west coast in over a month. Last month the ocean was on fire. A tornado tore through a city. For years, climate scientists have warned that climate change wouldn’t just cause warming temperatures, it would trigger all types of weather extremes - longer fire seasons; increasingly severe coastal storms, drought.
Recently, I have been thinking about an allegory that is discussed heavily in Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, about a frog that sits naively in a pot of water as temperatures increase and slowly, the frog is boiled alive. Sitting in my cupola, an oven in the sky, as temperatures skyrocketed ten degrees above previous record-highs, I can’t help but feel like I’m the frog in the pot. Except, the change hasn’t been slow and gradual. And it hasn’t snuck up on us. There’s a sad, tragic dissonance in our collective selective hearing as we overlook the evidence that has been telling us for decades that it’s time that we jump out of the allegorical pot and collectively address that we are boiling our planet alive.
