Skip to main content
Author(s):
Logan T. Berner, Beverly E. Law, Arjan J. H. Meddens, Jeffrey A. Hicke
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Ecology
Fire Effects

NRFSN number: 19662
Record updated:

We discovered an error in our analysis that led us to underestimate tree mortality from fires and beetles in western California and northern Washington. We characterized fire extent and severity using the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity raster mosaic data set. This data set did not maintain a consistent spatial extent across years, but rather the annual spatial extent encompassed all fires that occurred in a specific year. The data set thus periodically excluded parts of western California and northern Washington when no fires occurred in those areas. We did not adequately account for no-data values that were introduced by shifts in annual spatial extent of these data. The no-data values were then propagated through the analysis when we updated the biomass map at each time-step to account for prior tree mortality. Functionally, the biomass map were iteratively nibbled away by no-data values along the western and northern edges of the study domain, causing us to underestimate tree mortality in these areas. We corrected this error and updated our estimates of statewide tree mortality. Our estimates of mean annual tree mortality from fires increased from 2.60 ± 2.14 to 2.73 ± 2.43 Tg AGC yr−1 for California and from 0.52 ± 0.38 to 0.80 ± 0.78 Tg AGC yr−1 for Washington. Similarly, our estimates of mean annual tree mortality from beetles increased from 1.65 ± 0.95 to 1.71 ± 1.01 Tg AGC yr−1 for California and from 1.64 ± 0.45 to 2.47 ± 0.77 Tg AGC yr−1 for Washington. We updated our estimates of tree mortality in table S2 and where referenced in the abstract and results. We also updated our corresponding tree mortality data set that is archived on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive System. Overall, this correction did not change the conclusions of our paper and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Citation

Berner LT, Law BE, Meddens AJH, and Hicke JA. 2019. Corrigendum: Tree mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest during a hot and dry decade in the western United States (2003–2012). Environmental Research Letters 14 (2019) 059501. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1690

Access this Document