Planet Afire

Take a look at this image.  It’s telling you something. Well, a lot of things, actually, But, there’s one very important thing that just leaps out at you.

Each of these fire maps accumulates the locations of the fires detected by MODIS on board the Terra and Aqua satellites over a 10-day period. Each colored dot indicates a location where MODIS detected at least one fire during the compositing period. Color ranges from red where the fire count is low to yellow where number of fires is large. The compositing periods are referenced by their start and end dates (julian day). The duration of each compositing period was set to 10 days. Compositing periods are reset every year to make year-to-year comparisons straightforward. The first compositing period of each year starts on January 1. The last compositing period of each year includes a few days from the next year. Courtesy NASA. Click to infernoate.

This map covers fires that were set from natural or human causes from 5/21/2011 through 5/30/2011. I would imagine that when the next map comes out, it will include a more extensive boundary for the Wallow Fire in Arizona, which is currently blowing huge clouds of smoke across the country both to the east and northeast.

Smoke from an Arizona wildfire spanned multiple states in early June 2011. According to the U.S. Air Quality “Smog Blog,” smoke from the Wallow Fire pushed air quality to unhealthy levels as far east as Alabama and Georgia. Closer to the source of the fire, thick smoke traveled across Colorado and into Nebraska. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on June 5, 2011. Smoke differs from nearby clouds in its darker color and less distinct margins. The smoke plume visible in this image appears disconnected from the Wallow Fire just west of the Arizona-New Mexico border, perhaps due to shifting winds. In Colorado, smoke extends northward across the state, blowing over the Rocky Mountains and into Wyoming and southwestern Nebraska. West of the smoke plume, skies are clear. The Wallow Fire appears in the lower left corner of the image, and the red outlines indicate active blazes. On June 6, InciWeb reported that the Wallow Fire had burned 192,746 acres (78,002 hectares). The fire broke out on May 29, and as of June 6, the cause of the fire was still under investigation. Courtesy NASA. Click to enlarge.

Where I live, we have been swimming in a sort of milky haze for days, and our sunsets have been gorgeously red and pink, due to suspended smoke particles in the air.  Unfortunately, those smoke particles are not great for human respiratory systems, and — an even sadder implication — they mean that thousands of acres of trees and brush have burned and people’s homes and businesses nearby are threatened with destruction.

The image of worldwide fires gives us pause for thought. What IS burning in all those places?  What’s it doing to our atmosphere?  To the countryside ravaged by fire? What are the fires doing to the humans who live and work nearby?  Could any of it have been avoided?

Certainly, in the case of some of these fires, natural causes such as lightning strikes are to blame. But, in other cases, it’s pretty clear (such as in the Amazon) that those fires are set on purpose, to use land that once was a rainforest for some other reason.  That’s called human-caused deforestation, and it is widespread. It may yield farmland for a while, but in a few decades (or less) those same lands will be a desert, featuring hard-pan crusts that won’t be yielding anything but dust.

Images such as these are part of the effort that scientists are making to study our planet, understand its systems, and — clearly to the dismay of climate change denialists — making some pretty clear points about what humans are doing to this planet.  But, visible evidence of fires, of melting ice caps, of whatever it is that our satellites see for us, is part of the scientific method. It’s evidence. It’s data. If you’re going to study a planet, and all its ecosystems and geological zones and life forms, you have to be prepared for what you’re going to find in the data — especially as we see the effects of human habitation.  We’ve come a long way toward a basic understanding of some systems. But, in other cases, such as understanding what good rainforests are for, we are still struggling with answers. Well, look at the pictures we get each day of our planet. That’s a world. It has its systems. We are working to understand them.  And, in some places, humans are working to destroy them.

You know,  I sit here and write little stories on this blog about what scientists discover, usually “out there” in the universe.  There are galaxies and stars and nebulae, and planets… and all the discoveries we make “out there” often bring us right back here, to the world we call home.  Astronauts float above it and remark on how peaceful it looks.  They marvel at its beauty.  They take pictures, as do our satellites.  And, people like me post them and write about them, in hopes that people like you… and you… and you… will be moved by the beauty of what our scientists are learning. And, if it moves you, I hope you are also moved to take action to support science research and education.  That’s my job — to bring it to you and tell you what the science case is. It’s your job as a voter (particularly in the U.S.)  to make sure that we keep exploring the universe.   That we don’t succumb to fear and hysteria of science by those who neither know science nor want to know it, but know that they hate it because it tells us some inconvenient truths about our planet and humanity’s place in the ecosystems that this world supports. That is, unfortunately, also part of the scientific method. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that, and move on to accepting that what we say and do has consequences.

So, here’s a challenge back to those who are waiting for leaders to tell them what to do when it comes to supporting science:

BE the change you want to see in our research and educational spheres.  If you want to see better science education, more funding for research, and more money for NASA, you have a duty and obligation as a citizen and voter to let your representatives know what you want.

Don’t wait for me or Neil Tyson or Phil Plait or others to lead you by the nose. We’ll keep bringing science to you, but you have do your part, too. As George Carlin used to say in a different context, “You gotta wanna…”  In this case, you gotta wanna learn and move ahead.”  I can’t make you “wanna”.  Nor can the other guys.  We can urge you and show you pictures and tell you stories… but, in the final analysis, it comes down to you taking some action to make changes.

I hope that the folks in Arizona survive this fire. It’s a disaster for them and the ecosystems they live in. In a small sense, they are facing what our whole planet is going to face as climate changes, hot places get hotter, cold places get colder, wet places get wetter, dry places get dryer, and extremes in weather loom on the horizon.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 19:34 pm and is filed under Arizona Wallow fire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.