Transcript McKenzie-climate

Climate change and wildfire
Research at the PNW Station: past, present, future
Don McKenzie (TCM/FERA)
with contributions from
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Paul Hessburg
Becky Flitcroft
PNW Science Day
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Sim Larkin
John Kim
March 12, 2014
Rationale
Seneviratne et al. (2014)
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It’s getting warm down here.
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No “hiatus” in hot extremes over land.
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More area is expected to burn.
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What we care about is how fire climatology
translates to the issues and scales relevant to
land management.
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Fire effects: tree mortality, smoke and air quality,
habitat structure and pattern, regeneration and
forest succession.
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Time domains: immediate (to 2020s), next
generation (2040s), long-term (2060s and
beyond). Uncertainties grow non-linearly over
time.
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Space domains: cross-scale, from watersheds
(“landscapes”) to the region.
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Specificity: fire regimes. It’s not about individual
fires or “my favorite pixel”.
(though not so much as on this map)
Past and present research (1)
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Drivers of area burned
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Fire-climate models at the scales of ecosections
project that the West will burn up.
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Expectation breaks down because there are
limitations.
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Fire area can’t keep increasing because fires will run
out of real estate.
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“Hotter and drier = more fire” doesn’t work
everywhere. Best in the dark green ecosections.
Expectation: Hotter and drier = more fire!
Temperate rain forests: extreme
weather causes rare wildfires.
Transitional forests: drought stress
will increase fire extent and severity.
Arid forests: fire extent and
severity may actually decrease.
Correlations between annual area
burned and water-balance deficit
Past and present research (2)
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Smoke and air quality (AirFire/FERA —
Larkin/McKenzie)
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Smoke modeling framework (BlueSky) that
accepts either observed or simulated (i.e.,
future) fires.
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Stochastic fire simulator tuned to the spatiotemporal domains of air-quality models.
McKenzie et al. (2014)
Past and present research (3)
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Future megafires (AirFire/FERA — Larkin/McKenzie)
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Expectation of more extreme events based
on projections of future fire weather.
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Representing all the factors that combine to
produce a megafire.
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Weather pre-ignition conditions fuels.
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Weather on the day or hour of the fire.
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Escapes initial attack? (hard to model but a big
source of uncertainty)
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Weather in days or weeks following fire.
How will this change in a warming climate?
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Downscaling climate models.
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Different regions will see different fire weather
(not always hotter and drier).
Stavros et al. (2014)
Past and present research (4)
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Fire and landscape dynamics (EPF/CLI — Hessburg)
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Patch-size distributions associated with future climate.
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Topographic controls based on terrain patch structure.
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Endogenous vs. exogenous controls on fire & other disturbance.
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Restore and maintain ecosystem function in future climate.
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Use topography as a template.
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Patch structure and tree density tuned to “climate analog” reference conditions
rather than HRV.
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Anticipate patterns of fire severity and seral stages.
Past and present research (5)
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Fire, climate change, and bull trout vulnerability (LWM/AEM — Flitcroft)
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Patch-size distributions associated with future climate.
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Habitat extent of cold water aquatic species is vulnerable to climate change.
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Climate change may isolate small patches of habitat, often in the headwaters of a watershed.
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Wildfire may compound the negative
effects of climate change for cold
water species.
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Some management action to reduce
wildfire effects may serve to protect
some cold water aquatic refugia.
Past and present research (6)
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Process-based modeling of climate, vegetation, fire (EPF/CLI — Kim)
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MC2 DGVM simulates vegetation-fire interactions at multiple scales.
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Global, CONUS, regional.
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Currently studying R6, R5, R4, R1, and Blue Mountains Ecoregion.
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MC1-based Seasonal Drought and Fire Forecasting System creates 7-month fire and
drought forecasts, updated monthly.
Downscaled output from
CMIP5 GCM projections
used to drive DGVM and
predict changes in fire.
Projections of biomass
consumed by wildfire:
1951-2000. vs. 2050-2099
Future research (1): categories
• Field & remote-sensing studies
‣ Fire and succession
‣ Fire and other disturbances
‣ Fire and carbon
• Theory
Subalpine fire and succession (Cansler 2014)
‣ Conceptual models
‣ Scaling
‣ Extreme events and thresholds
Kellogg et al. (2008)
• Models
‣ Landscape projections
‣ Process AND empirical
‣ “As simple as possible, but no simpler”
Fire
Future research (2): questions
• How much, how quickly?
‣ High-severity patches
‣ Carbon source
‣ Air quality
• Where?
‣ Vulnerable landscapes
‣ Thresholds for species and life
forms (e.g., forest ➛ shrubland)
‣ Thresholds for processes (e.g.,
habitat connectivity)
• What can we do?
‣ Resistance (short-term)
‣ Resilience (mid-term)
‣ Adaptation (start now)
?
The end