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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS 55 aridity to impose an increasingly dominant and detectable effect on western US forest fire area in the coming decades while fuels remain abundant….166 A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) bolsters this finding, concluding that human-caused climate change nearly doubled the area impacted by forest fire in the West over the last thirty years. The study found that human- caused warming in the period 2000 to 2015: contributed to 75% more forested area experiencing high … fire-season fuel aridity and an average of nine additional days per year of high fire potential…. We estimate that human-caused climate change contributed to an additional 4.2 million ha [10.4 million acres] of forest fire area during 1984–2015, nearly doubling the forest fire area expected in its absence…. [A]nthropogenic climate change has emerged as a driver of increased forest fire activity and should continue to do so ….167 For comparison to the estimate that climate change contributed to over ten million acres of forest fire area since 1984, we note that the total acreage of national forest land in Colorado is about 8.4 million acres. The PNAS study concludes that climate-caused wildfire will worsen in the future, and will tax federal fire budgets even further: The growing ACC [anthropogenic climate change] influence on fuel aridity is projected to increasingly promote wildfire potential across western US forests in the coming decades and pose threats to ecosystems, the carbon budget, human health, and fire suppression budgets that will collectively encourage the development of fire-resilient landscapes. Although fuel limitations are likely to eventually arise due to increased fire activity, this process has not yet substantially disrupted the relationship between western US forest fire area and aridity. We expect anthropogenic climate change and associated increases in fuel aridity to impose an increasingly dominant and detectable effect on western US forest fire area in the coming decades while fuels remain abundant….168 In sum, climate change will continue to alter ecosystems and consume agency funding in the area of the Uncompahgre Field Office. To take the required hard look at the proposed RMP and alternatives, BLM must consider both the fact that: (1) fires are likely to become more frequent and burn more terrain in the UFO area; and (2) BLM’s actions in managing the UFO that contribute to fire-worsening climate change will burn through the agency’s budget. The EIS must also disclose, and the RMP should address the fact that a new study predicts that climate change is likely to worsen drought across the Uncompahgre Field Office. A peer-reviewed article in Science Advances published in October estimates that the chance of a “megadrought” – a period of “aridity as severe as the worst multiyear droughts of the 20th century [that] persist[s] for decades” – in the American Southwest before the end of the century 166 Id. at 4 (citations omitted). 167 Id. at 1. 168 Id. at 4 (citations omitted).