Climate and the Future of Forests with Dr. Tyler Hoecker

04/16/24 • 38 min

A conversation with Dr. Tyler Hoecker, who studies forest ecology and the changing dynamics of fire as the climate warms. This episode was recorded in August of 2023.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Dr. Hoecker’s research: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112721009051

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is supported by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri Sasnett: This is Headwaters, a show about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. My name is Peri, and I'm talking to you from the dense forests of northwest Montana. This episode is an interview that my co-host Daniel did with forest ecologist Dr. Tyler Hoecker about how wildfires exacerbated by climate change are upending our forests. This episode is part of a series of conversations we've been having with a wide variety of climate change experts. These episodes don't have to be listened to in any order, each one stands on its own. And they all focus on a particular aspect of the way the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has released enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate over one degree Celsius, with only more warming on the way. Throughout 2023, Daniel sat down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures. [drum and synth beat starts to play] I find fire fascinating, so I think this conversation was one of my favorites. I feel like I've heard most of the usual stories about wildfire so many times, so I was really excited to hear about Dr. Hoecker's research on how forests are responding to climate change. It felt like a new angle. I learned a lot, and I hope you do too.

[beat concludes]

Daniel Lombardi: So, Dr. Tyler Hoecker, welcome to Headwaters.

Tyler Hoecker: Thanks so much for having me.

Daniel: It feels pretty good that we're talking today, or auspicious or bad, on like just this week the smoke really rolled into the park. We have several new fires burning right around us. It's very much fire season, so it's a good time to have this conversation. Will you introduce yourself and talk about kind of your job and the work you're doing right now?

Tyler: Sure. So I'm Tyler Hoecker. I'm a research scientist at the University of Montana in Missoula. And right now I'm doing research trying to understand how climate change is changing fire activity across the western U.S. and trying to project how fires and forests might change into the future.

Daniel: How did you get into fire stuff, like how did that become the path for you?

Tyler: I think everybody is sort of drawn to fire, in a, in a weird way, you know, fires are pretty important, has been an important like catalyst, you know, for civilization. And so I think it's sort of just a compelling thing.

Daniel: It's kind of a universal concept, that fire and flames draw your eye and like draw you in.

Tyler: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's hard to think about forests in the West without thinking about fire. I remember as an undergrad, I took a a forest ecology and policy class, and we went to a community fire meeting. And I just remember being really fascinated by the process. And it was clear to me pretty quickly that it was really important at shaping forests in the West. And so I was really interested in understanding it. And, you know, it's sort of interesting to think back on that. You know, that was 2010. And, you know, I think fire scientists probably understood what was what was unfolding in terms of fire in the West. But I don't think anybody would have been able to really predict, you know, what's happened in the last 13 years since in terms of the amount of area burned every year. And, yeah, the types of fire events that we're seeing every summer now.

Daniel: Yeah. So let's jump into some fire ecology. At one point I was hiking up Mt. Brown and it was kind of in the fall, early fall, the fireweed was blooming and like the sun was rising and kind of glowing through it. And there was the cloud layer was like fog all in the forest. And so I was walking through that and it had burned, you know, like a year before. So everything is charred and crisp and like pretty black. There's no living trees. But in that morning light, it was so beautiful. And for me it was kind of like a pivot point. This, like black backed woodpecker, flew down and landed on the tree in front of me and was feasting on beetles that like the fire-killed trees. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like fire is not ugly. The aftermath of fire can be really beautiful. And I knew intellectually that it's al...

A conversation with Dr. Tyler Hoecker, who studies forest ecology and the changing dynamics of fire as the climate warms. This episode was recorded in August of 2023.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Dr. Hoecker’s research: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112721009051

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is supported by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

[beat concludes]

Daniel Lombardi: So, Dr. Tyler Hoecker, welcome to Headwaters.

Tyler Hoecker: Thanks so much for having me.

Daniel: How did you get into fire stuff, like how did that become the path for you?

Daniel: It's kind of a universal concept, that fire and flames draw your eye and like draw you in.

Previous Episode

Climate and the Cryosphere with Dr. Caitlyn Florentine

A conversation with Dr. Caitlyn Florentine, research physical scientist with the US Geological Survey, who studies snow and ice in Glacier. This episode was recorded in May 2023.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Overview of the park’s glaciers: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/glaciersoverview.htm

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is supported by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri Sasnett: You're listening to Headwaters, a show from the icy mountains of northwest Montana about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. My name is Peri, and this episode is an interview that my co-host Daniel did with glaciologist Dr. Caitlyn Florentine—about how the U.S. Geological Survey studies the park's glaciers. This episode is part of a series of conversations we've been having with a wide variety of climate change experts. These episodes don't have to be listened to in any order. Each one stands on its own. And they all focus on a particular aspect of the way the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has released enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate over one degree Celsius, with only more warming on the way. Throughout 2023, Daniel sat down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures.

[background drum and bass music builds]

Peri: Glaciers are the park's namesake. So digging into the details of the science around them feels like the heart of the park's story. I will say this is a fairly wonky and detailed conversation about glacier science. I studied geology, so I loved it. But I think no matter your background, you'll find it thought provoking.

[music concludes]

Daniel Lombardi: Dr. Caitlyn Florentine, welcome to Headwaters.

Caitlyn Florentine: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Daniel: Can you introduce yourself? What's your job? What do you do?

Caitlyn: Yeah. My name is Caitlyn Florentine, and I work as a glaciologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. I'm a research scientist.

Daniel: So what have you been up to for the past couple of days?

Caitlyn: I've been here in the park doing fieldwork on Sperry Glacier.

Daniel: So you were up up in the mountains for the past couple of days?

Caitlyn: Yes.

Daniel: That's exciting.

Caitlyn: Yes, We had excellent weather.

Daniel: Do you think of yourself as a glaciologist or you study the cryosphere? How do you describe what you do?

Caitlyn: I consider myself a cryosphere scientist, and the cryosphere is the portion of the earth that is frozen. So anything involving frozen water: land, ice, sea ice, permafrost, seasonal snow. So I'm a glaciologist, and I think of it from sort of a geophysical perspective.

Daniel: You approach the study of the cryosphere, you approach glaciology from a very quantitative way. What does that mean?

Caitlyn: Correct. We are interested in being very sort of precise with the numbers. So quantifying the amount of water that's entering and exiting the glacier system, for example. So rather than having a sort of description of the quality of what's happening, we also strive to put numbers to that so that we can start to be a bit more precise and exact in our understanding, which then enables us to connect to other studies and sort of systems of the of the earth.

Daniel: So what made you want to get into this field? How did you get started in the study of the cryosphere?

Caitlyn: I really love the mountains and to be in the mountains and there is a plethora of snow and ice in mountain environments. So I studied geology as an undergrad at Colorado College, and I was really fascinated by earth processes and I knew I wanted to study something on timescales that were relevant to humans. And so I made a choice for graduate school between volcanology and glaciology. And then my sort of recreational interests led to me choosing glaciology ultimately.

Daniel: Oh, that's super interesting. Cool. Yeah, because you could have studied a geology that, you know, spans millions or even billions of years, but you had a desire to keep it on a human scale or closer to a human scale anyway.

Caitlyn: Exactly. My colleagues who study seasonal snow, for example, are inspecting processes that are happening over the timescale of seconds or or hours or days. And it's sort of that opportunity to toggle the window of time that we're considering, I think really captivated me and drew me to the cryosphere.

Daniel: Oh, that's okay. That plus you want to go be able to go up into the mountains for work. So it's a good fit. Well, what makes your work important? L...

Next Episode

Climate and History with Elizabeth Villano

A conversation with Elizabeth Villano, from the NPS Climate Change Response Program, about telling climate stories and finding hope. This episode was recorded in June of 2023.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Climate change across the NPS: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/index.htm

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy. You're listening to Headwaters, a show from Glacier National Park.

Peri Sasnett: Glacier is usually thought of as a nature park, but it's also steeped in human culture and history dating back thousands of years. My name is Peri, and this episode is an interview with climate change interpreter and park ranger Elizabeth Villano. She talks about how climate change isn't just a nature or science story, but is also a history and culture story, and about how national parks and historic sites across the country can lead that conversation. This episode is part of a series of conversations we've been having with a wide variety of climate change experts. These episodes don't have to be listened to in any order, each one stands on its own. And they all focus on a particular aspect of the way the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has released enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate over one degree Celsius, with only more warming on the way. Throughout 2023, Daniel sat down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures. [drum and synth beat starts to play] This is an interview that surprised me. Each turn in the conversation went in directions I didn't expect. I've always known that climate change is a big story that connects to pretty much everything, but I'd never heard it explored this fully. If you enjoy visiting national parks, or especially if you like going to ranger programs, this conversation is for you.

[beat concludes]

Daniel Lombardi: Elizabeth, welcome to headquarters.

Elizabeth Villano: Thanks so much, Daniel. It's great to be here.

Daniel: Will you introduce yourself? Where do you work?

Elizabeth: I work for the Climate Change Response Program, which is the centralized unit within the National Park Service that does climate change communication, resilience, adaptation work for all of the National Park Service sites.

Daniel: And before that, you worked for a bunch of national park sites in the San Francisco Bay Area, right?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I worked at Alcatraz Island, the Marin Headlands, Muir Woods, and Rosie the Riveter World War Two Home Front National Historical Park.

Daniel: Okay, so you're you are a park ranger wearing the flat hat, talking to the public, talking about trees, talking about the history of World War Two, talking about all kinds of stuff.

Elizabeth: And federal prisons.

Daniel: Okay. And now you're working with all the national parks around the country, four hundred-some of them. And you're helping them incorporate climate change into what they're already doing?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think at last count, there was 424 National Park Service sites across the country.

Daniel: Okay.

Elizabeth: And all of those interpreters have a really important job of engaging the public with their site specifically. Mm hmm. And so I am kind of in the next step up from that, where I help create training materials and actually facilitate and lead trainings that help those interpreters find their own site connection to climate change.

Daniel: Is there a park site that isn't connected to climate change?

Elizabeth: Definitely not.

Daniel: And that is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. We're having this whole series of conversations about climate change in the national parks. And I wanted to talk to you because you are talking to all these other national parks, talking about how climate change is connected to everything we do, including historical and cultural park sites. It's not just about the big nature parks like Glacier.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. And in those big nature parks like Glacier, finding the unexpected connections that sometimes create the deeper meanings for visitors.

Daniel: So there for sure wasn't any like, you know, "aha" wake up moment for you on climate change. Like what underpins, you know, what's your motivation? Why do you want to tell climate stories at all?

Elizabeth: So the mission of the National Park Service is to preserve these places that we're in unimpaired for future generations. Mm hmm. And a lot of people understand when we say things ...