4.2.9 Parturition of a Pyroparadigm

“Even if we fully understood all these details, we still would not have the ability to stop large fires, just as we are unable to stop earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural cataclysms. Nor should we want to. The environmental consequences of disrupting these large-scale processes would be catastrophic”. Jensen and McPherson, 2008.

The finer points of the relationships between the variables that dictate spatiotemporal patterns and processes within fire regimes are becoming ever more illuminated by the day, and so much so that fire ecology is described as being at the “forefront” of scientific discovery (Moritz et al, 2005, p.17912). For example, a study just released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 2017) established that, as paleoecological records suggested could be the case, plant growth is accelerating as CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere. The team, led by Elliot Campbell of the University of California, studied a data-set spanning 54,000 years, concluding that the higher the level of atmospheric CO2, the greater the ratio of CO2 plants fix in their tissues. The research builds on earlier studies that indicated a correlation between elevated atmospheric CO2 and increased biomass production (Ainsworth and Long, 2005), and tree branching (Saxe et al, 1998). Systemically, the implications are significant, and especially in the context of wildfires. CO2, which at the time of writing is at over 407 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere (Scripps, 2017), and fast rising, is creating a growth spurt in some forest regions (Pan et al, 2013), which in the language of thermodynamics translates to simultaneously increasing fuel loads, and the combustibility thereof, given the higher the CO2 fixation, the higher the quantity of O2 being released. While both fuel load and the combustibility thereof is increasing, so too, in some regions, is the probability of an ignition source (i.e. lightening), given that the greater the increase in average global temperature, the greater the energy circulating in the atmosphere, therein, the greater the possible number and size of some types of weather system, including dry thunder storms.

Today, roughly 100 lightning flashes per second are recorded, which translates to approx. 1.4 billion lightning flashes annually (NOAA, n.d) [Fig. 30]. The sum thereof constitutes a mix of lightning types, of which some are more likely than others to start a wildfire. Whereupon lightning occurs in the presence of precipitation its hue will be red if rain, blue if hail, both of which are indicative of a reduced probability of a cloud-to-ground strike igniting a fire. However, white lightning signals an absence of atmospheric moisture, and is thus more likely to start a fire whereupon wider environmental conditions (i.e. biomass state) are conducive thereto (Schneider and Breedlove, n.d). By means of giving some measure of the potency of nature’s foremost fire starter, air’s resistance to the movement of the electrical charge known as lightning can generate temperatures of 27,760°C, that being five times hotter than the Sun’s surface (NOAA, n.d). Unevenly distributed, both spatially and temporally, lightning flashes increase in the summer months when thunderstorms are more frequent, and are several times more likely in the tropics, where 70% of lightning activity occurs (Ibidem). The fact that lightning activity coincides with the period when regional fuel loads are generally tinder-dry, means that even an incremental increase in the number of summer storms, therein lightning strikes, in the western United States may cause more, not less wildfires in the future.

As will be discussed later in this thesis, a significant body of empirical and theoretical data makes clear that while we know not the specifics of the future climate, suffice is the evidence as to assert that Earth Systems interact in such a way as creates planetary-scale chain reactions, not all of which we yet fully understand. However, the matter thereof makes the research field all the more compelling, for as information and insights fast-emerge, that in turn develop our understanding of the way in which fast and slow variables within the planetary-scale schemata interplay [Fig. 31], so too emerges a new paradigm, and not in a superficial sense, but as fulfils the criteria [96] as was specified in the seminal publication that first popularized the term (Khun, 1962).

>Continue to Chapter 4 [part III] here.

Footnotes

[96] Whereupon, having re-evaluated the premise of a scientific theory, the research community concludes there potential for a more viable alternative, thereon displaces prior fundamental assumptions, and its “imagination” is stimulated suffice to transform a discipline, or collective thereof, a new paradigm will emerge. In ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ Thomas Khun described the processes thereof through a series of historical precedents, including the events that led to Lavoisier’s oxygen theory of combustion.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.