Andrew D. Bailey, Robert Mickler, and Cecil Frost in Butler, Bret W.; Cook, Wayne, comps. 2007. The fire environmentâinnovaYons, management, and policy; ...
Fire history, fire regimes, and climate change –
integra5ng informa5on for management and planning* William T. Sommers, Stanley G. Coloff and Susan G. Conard George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
Josh McDaniel
Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center Wednesday, August 4, 2010: 9:00 AM 335, David L Lawrence ConvenIon Center COS 51 -‐ ConservaIon Ecology & Ecosystem Management 95th Ecological Society of America Annual MeeIng PiPsburgh. PA
* A Joint Fire Science Program Project
Atmospheric Process & Change
Ecosystem Process & Change
Fire Process & Change Fire History
Fire Regimes
Ecosystem Classifica5on & Deriva5ve Tools
Fire History: The chronological record of the occurrence of fire in an ecosystem Fire Regimes: Fire regime refers to the nature of fire occurring over long periods and the prominent immediate effects of fire that generally characterize an ecosystem, including: fuel consump5on and fire spread paGerns; intensity; severity; frequency; and seasonality
Fire is a widespread ecosystem disturbance process that is global in scope, with event driven local to regional resource and societal impacts
European Space Agency IONIA Web Map Server ASTER Ac5ve Fire Catalogue 1 January – 31 December 2005
The frequency, severity and extent of wildland fires are largely a func5on of interac5ons between vegeta5on and atmospheric processes
1◦ ×1◦ global map of average annual area burned (percentage of cell burned) for 1960 to 2000
Dominant land cover from the Global Land Cover for the year 2000 Flannigan et al 2009: Implica5ons of changing climate for global wildland fire. JWF LePage et al Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19, 575–588, © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Fire ac5vity and management costs have increased significantly over the last few decades
Sommers, W.T. (2008) The Emergence of the Wildland-‐Urban Interface Concept. FOREST HISTORY TODAY | FALL 2008
There is growing evidence that these increases relate to measured changes in climate variables Annual frequency of large (>400 ha) western U.S. forest wildfires (bars) and mean March through August temperature for the western United States (line) A. L. Westerling et al., Science 313, 940 -‐943 (2006)
Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change Large forest fires have increased four–fold over the past 30 years in the American West Climate change will lead to an increase in …. wildfire
Panel on Adap5ng to the Impacts of Climate Change Managing ecosystems for adapta5on to climate change also
requires more consistent use of currently recognized best prac5ces … and keeping disturbance at acceptable scales
Panel on Informing an Effec5ve Response to Climate Change Demand for informa5on to support climate-‐related decisions … with plans and ac5ons … to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
U.S. federal resources within the four principal ecosystem types are vulnerable to a wide range of effects from climate change, including physical, biological, and economic and social effects.
2007
Physical effects of climate change include …… increased wildland fire ac5vity ….. Resource managers are uncertain about what ac5ons, if any, they should take to address the current effects of climate change and to plan for future effects on their resources.
GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior develop guidance incorpora5ng agencies’ best prac5ces, which advises managers on how to address climate change effects on the resources they manage and gather the informa5on needed to do so. Climate Change and Federal Lands Workshop convened by GAO, in collaboraIon with the NaIonal Academies’ Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, on November 2 and 3, 2006
How should we provide informa5on to support climate-‐related planning and ac5on decisions to adapt to the impacts of climate change, considering Climate change is leading to wildfire increases Ecosystems should be managed for adapta5on and keeping disturbance at acceptable scales Currently recognized best prac5ces should be consistently used
The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) is interested in sponsoring projects that synthesize exis2ng informa2on in a form that is useful to land managers. The goal is to present informaFon on topics of importance to land managers that have a sufficient base of exisFng knowledge to support a synthesis and management interpretaFon. JFSP is interested in synthesis proposals on the following topics:
Fire history and climate change – An examina5on of our knowledge of historical fire regimes, an assessment of how this informa5on can help us understand poten5al fire regimes in the face of climate change, and an interpreta5on of how this informa5on can help shape fire and fuel management decisions.
One step in synthesizing exis2ng informa2on in a form
that is useful to land managers
Fire History and Climate Change (FHCC) Project & Fire and Climate Science (FACS) Project Collabora5ve Workshop* The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center 9 – 11 February 2010
A Cross Sec5on of Managers, Planners and Scien5sts with Differing Ecosystem, Organization and Job Experiences Structured around 12 Ques5ons *Workshop Report Available on Request
Fire History and Climate Change (FHCC) Project Workshop Report Small Sample of Par5cipant Views
The audience for the synthesis should include natural resource managers as well as fire managers The fundamentals of climate change need to be included -‐-‐-‐ managers need a set of concepts for discussions regarding land management decisions GCM basics are fundamental and need to be included along with basic informa5on on how the global climate works
Fire History and Climate Change (FHCC) Project Workshop Par5cipant Views
Fire history is the data and historical fire regimes are the synthesis and narra5ve, the aggregate of the data The synthesis will help managers to iden5fy how to apply scarce resources in building resiliency in certain systems and to recognize which systems might receive less resources The Bailey Ecodivision level provides a useful overarching organiza5onal framework
Wildland Fire & Climate Change Informa2on What we Know
What we Understand
What we Expect
Atmospheric Chemistry
System Components 387
Arrhenius - 1896
Ecosystems
Atmospheric Dynamics
Keeling – Mauna Loa 1958
Bjerknes 1904
Richardson1922
Charney & Phillips- 1950s
Bailey Ecoregions - 1995 Koppen - 1931
Holdridge – 1947
Holdridge Life Zones
Given the large amount of available Wildland Fire & Climate Change Informa5on The challenge is to provide managers with synthesized informa5on focused on fire and climate change, involving mul5ple atmospheric and ecosystem process scales, in a placed-‐based format they can use for planning and communica5on purposes Bailey’s Ecosystem Classifica5on system is a well suited format: Deriving from Koeppen Climate Classifica5on Well Known and Invested in by the User Community Well Linked to the LANDFIRE Group of Geospa5al Fire Products
Bailey Ecosystem Division and Province Scales
Division Scale
Province Scale
Scales Climate & Weather Climate Change
Climate Variability (e.g. El Niño) Event (Synop5c)
Synthesize Fire History and Climate Knowledge Over a Range of Scales ~ Use Fire Regimes and Climate Change Projec2ons to BeOer Inform Natural Resource Managers and Planners
Fire Management Fuels (evolu5on of Vegeta5on) Seasonal to decadal drought Event
Fire Regime Types Based on Kuchler’s Poten5al Natural Vegeta5on Types Brown, James K.; Smith, Jane Kapler 2000. Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-‐GTR-‐42-‐vol. 2. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research StaIon. 257 p.
Fire Regime Condi5on Class (FRCC) hGp://frames.nbii.gov/documents/frcc/documents/FRCC+Guidebook_2008.10.30.pdf
Changes in the global distribu5on of fire-‐prone pixels under the A2 (mid-‐high) emissions scenario
2010–2039
2040–2069
2070–2099
FIRENPP
FIREnoNPP
Krawchuk MA, Moritz MA, Parisien M-‐A, Van Dorn J, Hayhoe K (2009) Global Pyrogeography: the Current and Future DistribuIon of Wildfire. PLoS ONE 4(4): e5102. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005102
Qualita5ve schema5c of global fire ac5vity through 5me, based on pre-‐Quaternary distribu5on of charcoal, Quaternary and Holocene charcoal records, and modern satellite observa5ons, in rela5on to the percentage of atmospheric O2 content, parts per million (ppm) of CO2, David M. J. S. Bowman, et al. Science 324, 481 (2009)
Reconstruc5ons of biomass burned, fire frequency, and woody biomass levels in North America A) CO2 ice-‐core record from Antarc5ca B) NGRIP18O ice record C) Reconstruc5on of biomass burned D) Reconstruc5on of fire frequency E) Trends in woody biomass F) biomass burning (black) and woody biomass (green) trends G) Number of dates per 50-‐ year interval Marlon et al, PNAS February 24, 2009 vol. 106 no. 8 2519–2524
Large vs. small wildfire areas
Recurrence intervals 102 km Fires
Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States Bruce D. Malamud, James D. A. Millington, and George L. W. Perry 4694–4699 PNAS March 29, 2005 vol. 102 no. 13
Bailey Ecosystem Division and Province Scales North Carolina Division Scale
Province Scale
Arizona
Selected curves for pollen grains and spores from Horse Cove Bog
Horse Cove fire history over the past 4000 years
Pre-‐Columbian Na5ve American Use of Fire on Southern Appalachian Landscapes Author(s): Hazel R. Delcourt and Paul A. Delcourt Source: Conserva5on Biology, Vol. 11, No. 4
1765 land grant survey southeastern Dare County
Color-‐coded topographic map for Dare County
PresePlement Fire Regime and VegetaIon Mapping in Southeastern Coastal Plain Forest Ecosystems Andrew D. Bailey, Robert Mickler, and Cecil Frost in Butler, Bret W.; Cook, Wayne, comps. 2007. The fire environment—innovaIons, management, and policy; conference proceedings. 26-‐30 March 2007; DesIn, FL. Proceedings RMRS-‐P-‐46CD
PreseGlement vegeta5on map
Fire regime maps, using cool colors for long fire intervals & warm colors for more frequent fire intervals
PresePlement Fire Regime and VegetaIon Mapping in Southeastern Coastal Plain Forest Ecosystems Andrew D. Bailey, Robert Mickler, and Cecil Frost in Butler, Bret W.; Cook, Wayne, comps. 2007. The fire environment—innovaIons, management, and policy; conference proceedings. 26-‐30 March 2007; DesIn, FL. Proceedings RMRS-‐P-‐46CD
Ecoprovinces of the western United States
LiPle et al, Ecological ApplicaIons, 19(4), 2009, pp. 1003–1021
Over 410,000 fire reports from the USFS, BLM, NPS, and BIA were compiled and combined in a dataset of monthly fire-‐start counts and acres burned on a 1o by 1o grid
ProjecIon of Bailey’s ecosystem divisions for the western United States onto a 1° °— 1° lat–lon grid
Average log10 acres burned by month for each grid cell
Westerling et al : CLIMATE AND WILDFIRE IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. BAMS 2003
Number of fire-‐scar sites (chronologies) in the Southwest recording fire dates in each year, 1700 to present, out of a total of 63 sites.
Fire-‐scar collec5ons and PDSI reconstruc5on grid points
Swetnam and Betancourt Journal of Climate 1998
Conclusion Our Fire History and Climate Change Synthesis integrates fire history, fire regime, and climate change informa5on in formats designed for use by managers in their climate change planning efforts We characterize atmospheric scales of importance to fire as the climate change, climate variability, and event scales, rela5ng to long-‐term evolu5on of vegeta5on, seasonal to decadal drought, and fire events We employ Bailey's vegeta5on classifica5on at various ecosystem scales to organize the fire history and fire regime informa5on for place based usage, as a bridge to LANDFIRE components, such as the Fire Regime Condi5on Class (FRCC), and as a link to GCM-‐based climate projec5ons
