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As forest carbon offset projects become more popular, professional foresters are providing their expertise to support them. But when several members of the Society of American Foresters questioned the science and assumptions used to design the…
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The state of knowledge about climatic effects on forests of the Northwest region was recently summarized in a peer reviewed assessment of these effects in Washington (Littell et al. 2009, 2010) and a white paper on climatic effects on Oregon…
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A warming climate may increase the frequency and severity of stand-replacing wildfires, reducing carbon (C) storage in forest ecosystems. Understanding the variability of postfire C cycling on heterogeneous landscapes is critical for predicting…
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Increased wildfire activity (e.g. number of starts, area burned, fire behaviour) across the western United States in recent decades has heightened interest in resolving climate-fire relationships. Macroscale climate-fire relationships were examined…
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Globally documented widespread drought-induced forest mortality has important ramifications for plant community structure, ecosystem function, and the ecosystem services provided by forests. Yet the characteristics of drought seasonality, severity,…
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With projected climate change, we expect to face much more forest fire in the coming decades. Policy-makers are challenged not to categorize all fires as destructive to ecosystems simply because they have long flame lengths and kill most of the…
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Land managers of the northern Rocky Mountains and south-central U.S. are challenged with numerous social and ecological changes, many of which are linked to climate change. The work presented here focuses on two important research gaps: 1) managers…
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Pervasive warming can lead to chronic stress on forest trees, which may contribute to mortality resulting from fire-caused injuries. Longitudinal analyses of forest plots from across the western US show that high pre-fire climatic water deficit was…
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Monthly temperature and precipitation data from 41 global climate models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) were compared to observations for the 20th century, with a focus on the United States Pacific Northwest (PNW…
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While North American ecosystems vary widely in their ecology and natural historical fire regimes, they are unified in benefitting from prescribed fire when judiciously applied with the goal of maintaining and restoring native ecosystem composition,…
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Traditional knowledge is increasingly recognized as valuable for adaptation to climate change, bringing scientists and indigenous peoples together to collaborate and exchange knowledge. These partnerships can benefit both researchers and indigenous…
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Changes in key drivers (e.g., climate, disturbance regimes and land use) may affect the sustainability of forest landscapes and set the stage for increased tension among competing ecosystem services. We addressed two questions about a suite of…
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Climate projections for the next 20-50 years forecast higher temperatures and variable precipitation for many landscapes in the western United States. Climate changes may cause or contribute to threshold shifts, or tipping points, where relatively…
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Trends in streamflow timing and volume in the Pacific Northwest United States have been attributed to increased temperatures, because trends in precipitation at lower-elevation stations were negligible. We demonstrate that observed streamflow…
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Climatic change is anticipated to alter disturbance regimes for many ecosystems. Among the most important effects are changes in the frequency, size, and intensity of wildfires. Serotiny (long-term canopy storage and the heat-induced release of…
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Researchers and natural resource managers need predictions of how multiple global changes (e.g., climate change, rising levels of air pollutants, exotic invasions) will affect landscape composition and ecosystem function. Ecological predictive…
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Sequestration of carbon (C) in forests has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change by offsetting future emissions of greenhouse gases. However, in dry temperate forests, wildfire is a natural disturbance agent with the potential to…
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In understanding causes of changes in global or regional climate, scientists often distinguish between processes external to the climate system and processes internal to the climate system. External processes include solar and volcanic forcings and…
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Recent climate-change research largely confirms the impacts on US ecosystems identified in the 2009 National Climate Assessment and provides greater mechanistic understanding and geographic specificity for those impacts. Pervasive climate-change…
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Climate change related impacts, such as increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, higher temperatures, extreme changes to ecosystem processes, forest conversion and habitat degradation are threatening tribal access to valued resources. Climate…
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