Missing climate feedbacks in fire models: limitations and uncertainties in fuel loadings and the role of decomposition in fine fuel succession

Hanan, E. J.; Kennedy, Maureen C.; Ren, Jianning; Johnson, Michelle L.; Smith, Alistair M. S.

doi:10.1002/essoar.10508012.1

Cited by 2 publications

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“…For example, spatial partitioning of moisture and nitrogen in litter stores can accelerate or decelerate decomposition during drying and rewetting cycles (Birch, 1959). In addition, modeled decomposition rates can be highly sensitive to parameter and model structure uncertainties and this sensitivity increases with climate warming (Hanan et al., 2022). This can be problematic when projecting the future fuel loading under climate change, particularly over long timescales such as when extending projections from the 2040s to the 2070s.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This non‐monotonic response occurred because decreases in fuel loading dominated over the increases in fuel aridity. However, the decreases in fuel loading (caused by higher litter decomposition rates) outstripped changes in fire weather and caused a dramatic reduction in wildfire under the climate change in the far future (2070s)—this process needs to be explored further given the uncertainties in modeling future decomposition (Hanan et al., 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Projecting Future Fire Regimes in a Semiarid Watershed of the Inland Northwestern United States: Interactions Among Climate Change, Vegetation Productivity, and Fuel Dynamics

et al. 2022

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Fire regimes are influenced by both exogenous drivers (e.g., increases in atmospheric CO2 and climate change) and endogenous drivers (e.g., vegetation and soil/litter moisture), which constrain fuel loads and fuel aridity. Herein, we identified how exogenous and endogenous drivers can interact to affect fuels and fire regimes in a semiarid watershed in the inland northwestern United States throughout the 21st century. We used a coupled ecohydrologic and fire regime model to examine how climate change and CO2 scenarios influence fire regimes. In this semiarid watershed, we found an increase in burned area and burn probability in the mid‐21st century (2040s) as the CO2 fertilization effect on vegetation productivity outstripped the effects of climate change‐induced fuel decreases, resulting in greater fuel loading. However, by the late‐21st century (2070s), climatic warming dominated over CO2 fertilization, thus reducing fuel loading and burned area. Fire regimes were shown to shift from flammability‐ to fuel‐limited or become increasingly fuel‐limited in response to climate change. We identified a metric to identify when fire regimes shift from flammability‐ to fuel‐limited: the ratio of the change in fuel loading to the change in its aridity. The threshold value for which this metric indicates a flammability versus fuel‐limited regime differed between grasses and woody species but remained stationary over time. Our results suggest that identifying these thresholds in other systems requires narrowing uncertainty in exogenous drivers, such as future precipitation patterns and CO2 effects on vegetation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projecting Future Fire Regimes in a Semiarid Watershed of the Inland Northwestern United States: Interactions Among Climate Change, Vegetation Productivity, and Fuel Dynamics

et al. 2022

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Climate and forest properties explain wildfire impact on microbial community and nutrient mobilization in boreal soil

Eckdahl

Kristensen

Metcalfe

2023

Front. For. Glob. Change

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The boreal landscape stores an estimated 40% of the earth's carbon (C) found in terrestrial vegetation and soils, with a large portion collected in thick organic soil layers. These ground stores are subject to substantial removals due to the centurial return of wildfire, which has strong impacts on the soil microbial community and nutrient cycling, which in turn can control ecosystem recovery patterns and process rates, such as C turnover. Currently, predictive knowledge used in assessing fire impacts is largely focused on ecosystems that experience only superficial burning and few robust observations exist regarding the effect that smoldering combustion in deeper active soil layers has on post-fire soil activity. This study provided a highly replicated and regionally extensive survey of wildfire impact on microbial community structure (using fatty acid biomarkers) and nutrient cycling (using in situ ionic resin capsules) across broad gradients of climate, forest properties and fire conditions within 50 separate burn scars and 50 additional matched unburnt boreal forest soils. The results suggest a strong metabolic shift in burnt soils due to heat impact on their structure and a decoupling from aboveground processes, releasing ecosystem N limitation and increasing mobilization of N, P, K, and S as excess in conjunction with an altered, C-starved microbial community structure and reduced root uptake due to vegetation mortality. An additional observed climatic control over burnt soil properties has implications for altered boreal forest function in future climate and fire regimes deserving of further attention.

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Missing climate feedbacks in fire models: limitations and uncertainties in fuel loadings and the role of decomposition in fine fuel succession

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Projecting Future Fire Regimes in a Semiarid Watershed of the Inland Northwestern United States: Interactions Among Climate Change, Vegetation Productivity, and Fuel Dynamics

Projecting Future Fire Regimes in a Semiarid Watershed of the Inland Northwestern United States: Interactions Among Climate Change, Vegetation Productivity, and Fuel Dynamics

Climate and forest properties explain wildfire impact on microbial community and nutrient mobilization in boreal soil

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