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Diana Six has been studying pine bark beetles for 25 years, and still can’t say she completely understands them. Lately, she’s been diving into a topic she has always found even more confounding - forest management. This article describes an…
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We examined relationships between monthly Arctic sea-ice extent (ASIE) and annual wildfire activity for seven regions in the western United States during 1980-2015 to determine if spatio-temporal linkages exist between ASIE, upper-level flow, and…
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Fire is returning to many conifer-dominated forests where species composition and structure have been altered by fire exclusion. Ecological effects of these fires are influenced strongly by the degree of forest change during the fire-free period.…
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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…
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Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience…
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We modeled the normal fire environment for occurrence of large forest wildfires (>40 ha) for the Pacific Northwest Region of the United States. Large forest wildfire occurrence data from the recent climate normal period (1971–2000) was used as…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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