Here, we explore how charcoal formation under different heating regimes and circumstances leads to chars of different physical properties. In order to do this, we have undertaken (1) carefully controlled laboratory experiments that replicate the different heating regimes that might be experienced during a wildfire and (2) two experimental wildfires where heat variations were monitored across the burn from which resulting charcoal has been studied. The charcoal properties were assessed using charcoal reflectance that measures the light reflected back from the charcoals structure and which links to changes in its structural properties. We find that increased total heat released during combustion positively correlates with increased charcoal reflectance and that this is evidenced from both our laboratory experiments and experimental wildfires. Charcoals that related to lower total heat release were found to have more lignin remaining than those subjected to greater heating indicating that charcoals formed in lower energy regimes are likely to be more susceptible to post-fire degradation. We conclude that charcoal reflectance may make a useful metric with which to determine the distribution of energy delivery across a burned area and that this may be utilized to inform both variations in fire severity and enable the prediction of long-term C budgeting for different types of wildfire.
Currently, our ability to link wildland fire behaviour to fire effects is through the lens of fire severity assessments, because there are no ground-based post-fire metrics that are able to quantitively capture aspects of heat transfer to plants. This presents a particular challenge when considering tree mortality linked to cambial damage, which can occur in both low-intensity surface fires through to high-intensity crown fires. Recent research suggests that measuring the amount of light reflected from charcoals produced by wildland fires will provide information about the energy flux that created the char. We created an experimental forest fire in which we had instrumented individual trees to record the energy delivered to the bark close to the base of the trees. We then assessed the bark charcoal reflectance of the same trees. We found that bark charcoal reflectance showed a strong positive correlation (r2>0.86, P=0.0031) with increasing duration of heating and the total energy delivered to the bark. We suggest that this may provide useful quantitative data that can be included in models or post-fire surveys to estimate tree mortality due to cambial kill.
Charcoal has recently been suggested to retain information about the fire that generated it. When looked at under a microscope, charcoals formed by different aspects of fire behaviour indicate different ability to reflect the amount of light when studied using the appropriate technique. It has been suggested that this method, charcoal reflectance (Ro), might be able to provide a quantitative fire severity metric that can be used in conjunction with or instead of standard qualitative fire severity scores. We studied charcoals from a recent heathland wildfire in Carn Brea, Cornwall, UK, and assessed whether charcoal reflectance (Ro) can be linked to standard qualitative fire severity scores for the burned area. We found that charcoal reflectance was greater at sites along the burned area that had been scored as having a higher qualitative fire severity. However, there were clear instances where the quantitative charcoal reflectance measurements were able to better indicate damage and regrowth potential than qualitative scoring alone. We suggest measuring the reflectance of charcoals may not only be able to provide quantitative information about the spatial distribution of heat across a burned area post fire but that this approach is able to provide improvement to fire severity assessment approaches.
<div>&#160;</div><div> <p>Climate services provide&#8239;information to help better manage climate-related risks and opportunities in different sectors around the world.&#8239;This requires work at the interface between scientific research and&#8239;decision-making. Studies have found that climate services are most effective when they are co-developed and co-produced with the intended users of the services.&#8239;To achieve this, climate service developments often involve scientists engaging with users and potential users, which traditionally has been most productive face-to-face, at least in the early stages of engagement and co-development to build relationships. &#160;</p> <p>In March 2020, the&#8239;COVID-19&#8239;pandemic&#8239;dramatically restricted face-to-face engagement, particularly for international activities. Climate service providers and users had to suddenly adapt and find methods to engage with each other virtually. Here we&#8239;discuss&#8239;the software and methods that are being used to ensure that provider-user engagement could&#8239;continue,&#8239;despite international travel restrictions, with a specific focus on working with users in China as part of the Climate Science for Services Partnership China project; a collaboration between the UK Met Office and other UK partners, the China Meteorological Administration, and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics. Using examples from work on food security with the agriculture sector in Northeast China, we will showcase different climate service prototype products, such as brochures, information packs, and comic book storylines which are helping us to engage with and understand the requirements of multiple audiences despite the lack of in-person engagement. &#160;</p> <p>Through this work, we have discovered additional benefits to virtual engagement, such as more frequent interactions with users, the ability to involve participants who wouldn&#8217;t usually be able to travel to attend events, and new metrics for evaluating climate services. These benefits will likely make virtual provider-user engagement a more common tool for developing and refining climate services with international partners in the future. We hope that the tools and methods presented here will help other climate service providers to conduct productive virtual provider-user engagement in the future, both in China and in other countries around the world.&#160;</p> </div>
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