[MCN] "In fire-prone ecosystems, the return of fire is inevitable..."

[Lance Olsen]

Forest Ecology and Management 2017


Tamm Review: Shifting global fire regimes: Lessons from reburns and research needs

Susan J. Prichard a,⇑, Camille S. Stevens-Rumann b, Paul F. Hessburg c

a University of Washington, College of the Environment, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), United States 

b University of Idaho, Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences, United States
c USDA-FS, PNW Research Station, University of Washington, College of the Environment, SEFS, United States

abstract

Across the globe, rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns have caused persistent regional droughts, lengthened fire seasons, and increased the number of weather-driven extreme fire events. Because wildfires currently impact an increasing proportion of the total area burned, land managers need to better understand reburns – in which previously burned areas can modify the patterns and severity of subsequent fires. For example, knowing how long past fire boundaries can function as barriers to fire spread may empower decision-makers to manage some wildfires as large-scale fuel treatments, or alternatively, determine where prescribed burning or strategic wildfire management are required. Additionally, a clear understanding of how prior burn mosaics influence future fire spread and burn severity is critical knowledge for landscape and fire-dependent wildlife habitat planning under a rapidly changing climate. Here, we review published studies on reburns in fire-adapted ecosystems of the world, including temperate forests of North America, semi-arid forests and rangelands, tropical and subtropical forests, grasslands and savannas, and Mediterranean ecosystems. To date, research on reburns is unevenly distributed across the world with a relative abundance of literature in Australia, Europe and North America and a scarcity of studies in Africa, Asia and South America. This review highlights the com- plex role of repeated fires in modifying vegetation and fuels, and patterns of subsequent wildfires. In fire- prone ecosystems, the return of fire is inevitable, and legacies of past fires, or their absence, often dictate the characteristics of subsequent fires.

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“The notion is pervasive in the climate science community and in the public at large that the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release will only persist for a few centuries. 
This conclusion has no basis in theory or models of the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle, which we review here. The largest fraction of the CO2 recovery will take place on 
time scales of centuries, as CO2 invades the ocean, but a significant fraction of the fossil fuel CO2, ranging in published models in the literature from 20–60%, remains 
airborne for a thousand years or longer. Ultimate recovery takes place on time scales of hundreds of thousands of years, a geologic longevity typically associated in 
public perceptions with nuclear waste.”

David Archer & Victor Brovkin. The millennial atmospheric lifetime of anthropogenic CO2. Climatic Change (2008) 90:283–297 DOI 10.1007/s10584-008-9413-1


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