Potential climate change impacts on fire intensity and key wildfire suppression thresholds in Canada

Wotton, B. M.; Flannigan, Mike D.; Marshall, Ginny

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7e6e

Cited by 227 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…According to our results, increasing the water supply through greater amounts of precipitation could increase mineral soil C stocks through enhanced mineral weathering and leaching, releasing metal oxides that can bind to organic matter (Doetterl et al., ; Mikutta et al., ; Porras et al., ; Rumpel & Kögel‐Knabner, ). Otherwise, the projected increase in fire frequency suggested by models (Kloster & Lasslop, ; Wang et al., ; Wotton, Flannigan, & Marshall, ) could weaken the C capture function of boreal forests (Genet et al., ; Pan et al., ). Integrating direct and indirect effects of abiotic and biotic factors on C storage processes, as presented here through mechanistic models of C dynamics in boreal forest ecosystems, could improve our ability to account for C stocks and anticipate the response of boreal forests to global change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of postfire soil organic carbon accumulation in the boreal forest

Andrieux

Béguin

Bergeron

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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The accumulation of soil carbon (C) is regulated by a complex interplay between abiotic and biotic factors. Our study aimed to identify the main drivers of soil C accumulation in the boreal forest of eastern North America. Ecosystem C pools were measured in 72 sites of fire origin that burned 2-314 years ago over a vast region with a range of ∆ mean annual temperature of 3°C and one of ∆ 500 mm total precipitation. We used a set of multivariate a priori causal hypotheses to test the influence of time since fire (TSF), climate, soil physico-chemistry and bryophyte dominance on forest soil organic C accumulation. Integrating the direct and indirect effects among abiotic and biotic variables explained as much as 50% of the full model variability. The main direct drivers of soil C stocks were: TSF >bryophyte dominance of the FH layer and metal oxide content >pH of the mineral soil. Only climate parameters related to water availability contributed significantly to explaining soil C stock variation. Importantly, climate was found to affect FH layer and mineral soil C stocks indirectly through its effects on bryophyte dominance and organo-metal complexation, respectively. Soil texture had no influence on soil C stocks. Soil C stocks increased both in the FH layer and mineral soil with TSF and this effect was linked to a decrease in pH with TSF in mineral soil. TSF thus appears to be an important factor of soil development and of C sequestration in mineral soil through its influence on soil chemistry. Overall, this work highlights that integrating the complex interplay between the main drivers of soil C stocks into mechanistic models of C dynamics could improve our ability to assess C stocks and better anticipate the response of the boreal forest to global change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of postfire soil organic carbon accumulation in the boreal forest

Andrieux

Béguin

Bergeron

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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“…In the current technological conditions, the accepted limit of capacity to control a fire is 10,000 kWm −1 [122][123][124][125][126]. Beyond 10,000 kWm −1 , it is well accepted that even heavy water bombers are ineffective [127], and fire control is not possible with current day technology and technical resources [128]. Long flames also make fires increasingly difficult to control and represent a threat for firefighters who must operate approaching to fire front, but respecting their "safety zone" [74].…”

Section: The Definition Of Extreme Wildfire Event As a Process And Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Tedim

Leone

Amraoui

et al. 2018

Fire

336

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Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent "scale of gravity" to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE.

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“…Besides DGVM simulation of post-fire dynamic tree regrowth, an Earth system model also can predict the long-term climatic impacts through specifying fire-induced landsurface property disturbances based on historical data. More crown fires and larger fraction of unsuppressed fires revealed in Wotton et al (2017) mean longer periods of tree regeneration in the future under climate change than the current estimation. Thus, the fire feedbacks to climate and impacts on the carbon cycle related to fire emissions and uptake by new generated trees would be more significant in the future.…”

Section: E-mail: Yliu@fsfedusmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…In a recent study, Wotton et al (2017) extended the fire impacts of climate change from fire behavior to fire suppression in the Canadian boreal forest. The authors projected future fire intensity based on climate change projections from three GCMs and the Canadian Forest Fire Behavior Prediction System and found that the number of crown fires would likely increase.…”

Section: E-mail: Yliu@fsfedusmentioning

confidence: 99%