Search by keywords, then use filters to narrow down results by type, year, topic, or ecosystem.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 32
Wildland fire is a disturbance that can profoundly impact the environment and human health and welfare. While climate is generally a critical driving factor shaping the occurrence and impacts of fire, fire can also play a role in shaping climate.…
Year Published:
The Constitution of the State of Montana, ratified in 1972, affirms Montanans’ inalienable “right to a clean and healthful environment” (State of Montana 1972). Since the signing of the constitution, that declaration has galvanized Montanans to…
Year Published:
Mechanical site preparation is assumed to reduce soil C stocks by increasing the rate at which the displaced organic material decomposes, but the evidence is equivocal. We measured rates of C loss of forest-floor material in mesh bags either placed…
Year Published:
In recent years, warming climate and increased fire activity have raised concern about post-fire recovery of western U.S. forests. We assessed relationships between climate variability and tree establishment after fire in dry ponderosa pine forests…
Year Published:
Forest restoration often includes thinning to reduce tree density and improve ecosystem processes and function while also reducing the risk of wildfire or insect and disease outbreaks. However, one drawback of these restoration treatments is that…
Year Published:
A long history of fire suppression in the western United States has significantly changed forest structure and ecological function, leading to increasingly uncharacteristic fires in terms of size and severity. Prior analyses of fire severity in…
Year Published:
Post-fire forest regeneration in a changing climate - Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program
Severe disturbance such as wildfire may create important opportunities for plant communities to reorganize in response to environmental change, including climate change. Disturbance may be particularly important in forests where the foundational…
Year Published:
As a key part of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) oversaw the production of this stand-alone report of the state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts.
The…
Year Published:
Community‐level climate change indicators have been proposed to appraise the impact of global warming on community composition. However, non‐climate factors may also critically influence species distribution and biological community assembly. The…
Year Published:
Trend analysis of fire season length and extreme fire weather in North America between 1979 and 2015
We have constructed a fire weather climatology over North America from 1979 to 2015 using the North American Regional Reanalysis dataset and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. We tested for the presence of trends in potential fire season…
Year Published:
Aridland riparian ecosystems are limited, the climate is changing, and further hydrological change is likely in the American Southwest. To protect riparian ecosystems and organisms, we need to understand how they are affected by disturbance…
Year Published:
Forest managers in the United States must respond to the need for climate-adaptive strategies in the face of observed and projected climatic changes. However, there is a lack of on-the-ground forest adaptation research to indicate what adaptation…
Year Published:
Emissions of aerosols and gases from fires have been shown to adversely affect US air quality at local to regional scales as well as downwind regions far away from the source. In addition, smoke from fires negatively affects humans, ecosystems, and…
Year Published:
Context: Interactions among disturbances, climate, and vegetation influence landscape patterns and ecosystem processes. Climate changes, exotic invasions, beetle outbreaks, altered fire regimes, and human activities may interact to produce…
Year Published:
Climate change is expected to result in substantial ecological impacts across the globe. These impacts are uncertain but there is strong consensus that they will almost certainly affect fire regimes and vegetation. In this study, we evaluated how…
Year Published:
Growing human and ecological costs due to increasing wildfire are an urgent concern in policy and management, particularly given projections of worsening fire conditions under climate change. Thus, understanding the relationship between climatic…
Year Published:
A longer growing season with climate change is expected to increase net primary productivity of many rangeland types, especially those dominated by grasses, although responses will depend on local climate and soil conditions. Elevated atmospheric…
Year Published:
Wildfire area is predicted to increase with global warming. Empirical statistical models and process-based simulations agree almost universally. The key relationship for this unanimity, observed at multiple spatial and temporal scales, is between…
Year Published:
The rates of anthropogenic climate change substantially exceed those at which forest ecosystems – dominated by immobile, long-lived organisms – are able to adapt. The resulting maladaptation of forests has potentially detrimental effects on…
Year Published:
The area burned annually by wildfires is expected to increase worldwide due to climate change. Burned areas increase soil erosion rates within watersheds, which can increase sedimentation in downstream rivers and reservoirs. However, which…
Year Published: