Journal ArticleDOI
The global fire–productivity relationship
Juli G. Pausas,E. Ribeiro +1 more
TLDR
In this paper, the intermediate fire-productivity model has been validated across all world ecosystems, including Antarctica, and it has been suggested that on a global scale, fire activity changes along the productivity/aridity gradient following a humped relationship.Abstract:
Aim
It has been suggested that on a global scale, fire activity changes along the productivity/aridity gradient following a humped relationship, i.e. the intermediate fire–productivity hypothesis. This relation should be driven by differing relative roles of the main fire drivers (weather and fuel) along the productivity gradient. However, the full intermediate fire–productivity model across all world ecosystems remains to be validated.
Location
The entire globe, excluding Antarctica.
Methods
To test the intermediate fire–productivity hypothesis, we use the world ecoregions as a spatial unit and, for each ecoregion, we compiled remotely sensed fire activity, climate, biomass and productivity information. The regression coefficient between monthly MODIS fire activity and monthly maximum temperature in each ecoregion was considered an indicator of the sensitivity of fire to high temperatures in the ecoregion. We used linear and generalized additive models to test for the linear and humped relationships.
Results
Fire occurs in most ecoregions. Fire activity peaked in tropical grasslands and savannas, and significantly decreased towards the extremes of the productivity gradient. Both the sensitivity of fire to high temperatures and above-ground biomass increased monotonically with productivity. In other words, fire activity in low-productivity ecosystems is not driven by warm periods and is limited by low biomass; in contrast, in high-productivity ecosystems fire is more sensitive to high temperatures, and in these ecosystems, the available biomass for fires is high.
Main conclusion
The results support the intermediate fire–productivity model on a global scale and suggest that climatic warming may affect fire activity differently depending on the productivity of the region. Fire regimes in productive regions are vulnerable to warming (drought-driven fire regime changes), while in low-productivity regions fire activity is more vulnerable to fuel changes (fuel-driven fire regime changes).read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
ENSO modulates wildfire activity in China.
Keyan Fang,Keyan Fang,Qichao Yao,Zhengtang Guo,Ben Zheng,Jianhua Du,Fangzhong Qi,Ping Yan,Jie Li,Tinghai Ou,Jane Liu,Jane Liu,Maosheng He,Valerie Trouet +13 more
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors presented a detailed fire occurrence dataset for China, the Wildfire Atlas of China (WFAC; 2005-2018), based on continuous monitoring from multiple satellites and calibrated against field observations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climatic and landscape influences on fire regimes from 1984 to 2010 in the western United States
Zhihua Liu,Michael C. Wimberly +1 more
TL;DR: There is a potential for the emergence of novel fire regimes due to the responses of fire regime components to multiple drivers at different spatial and temporal scales, which are controlled by different sets of climate and landscape factors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Future changes in climatic water balance determine potential for transformational shifts in Australian fire regimes
Matthias M. Boer,David M. J. S. Bowman,Brett P. Murphy,Geoffrey J. Cary,Mark A. Cochrane,Roderick J. Fensham,Meg A. Krawchuk,Owen Price,Víctor Resco de Dios,Richard J. Williams,Ross A. Bradstock +10 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the potential for transformational shifts in fire type from the difference in the affinity to either domain under a baseline climate and projected future climate was assessed for mesic savanna woodland and eucalypt forests in Australia.
Journal ArticleDOI
Can trophic rewilding reduce the impact of fire in a more flammable world
Christopher N. Johnson,Lynda D. Prior,Sally Archibald,Helen M. Poulos,Andrew M. Barton,Grant J. Williamson,David M. J. S. Bowman +6 more
TL;DR: To date, rewilding projects that aim to restore large herbivores have paid little attention to the value of large animals in moderating fire regimes, and Rewilding potentially offers a powerful tool for managing the risks of wildfire and its impacts on natural and human values.
Book ChapterDOI
Forests and Global Change: Global change and Mediterranean forests: current impacts and potential responses
Fernando Valladares,Raquel Benavides,Sonia G. Rabasa,Mario Díaz,Juli G. Pausas,Susana Paula,William D. Simonson +6 more
TL;DR: Niche modelling techniques are used to forecast changes to species distributions under future climate scenarios, and the results predict abrupt shifts of dominant tree species in the next decades.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth
Journal ArticleDOI
A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests
Craig D. Allen,Alison K. Macalady,Haroun Chenchouni,Dominique Bachelet,Nate G. McDowell,Michel Vennetier,Thomas Kitzberger,Andreas Rigling,David D. Breshears,Edward H. Hogg,Patrick Gonzalez,Rod Fensham,Zhen Zhang,Jorge Castro,N.A. Demidova,Jong Hwan Lim,Gillian Allard,Steven W. Running,Akkin Semerci,Neil S. Cobb +19 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress and identify key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system.
Journal ArticleDOI
Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity
Anthony L. Westerling,Anthony L. Westerling,Hugo G. Hidalgo,Daniel R. Cayan,Daniel R. Cayan,Thomas W. Swetnam +5 more
TL;DR: It is shown that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons.
Journal ArticleDOI
The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis
Suranjana Saha,Shrinivas Moorthi,Hua-Lu Pan,Xingren Wu,Jiande Wang,Sudhir Nadiga,Patrick Tripp,Robert Kistler,John S. Woollen,David Behringer,Haixia Liu,Diane Stokes,Robert Grumbine,George Gayno,Jun Wang,Yu-Tai Hou,Hui-ya Chuang,Hann-Ming Henry Juang,Joe Sela,Mark Iredell,Russ Treadon,Daryl T. Kleist,Paul van Delst,Dennis Keyser,John Derber,Michael Ek,Jesse Meng,Helin Wei,Rongqian Yang,Stephen J. Lord,Huug van den Dool,Arun Kumar,Wanqiu Wang,Craig S. Long,Muthuvel Chelliah,Yan Xue,Boyin Huang,Jae-Kyung E. Schemm,Wesley Ebisuzaki,Roger Lin,Pingping Xie,Mingyue Chen,Shuntai Zhou,Wayne Higgins,Cheng-Zhi Zou,Quanhua Liu,Yong Chen,Yong Han,Lidia Cucurull,Richard W. Reynolds,Glenn Rutledge,Mitch Goldberg +51 more
TL;DR: The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) was completed for the 31-yr period from 1979 to 2009, in January 2010 as mentioned in this paper, which was designed and executed as a global, high-resolution coupled atmosphere-ocean-land surface-sea ice system to provide the best estimate of the state of these coupled domains over this period.
Journal ArticleDOI
Generalized Additive Models: An Introduction With R
TL;DR: Robinson, R. (2007). Generalized Additive Models: An Introduction With R.(2007).
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