Article
Alaska’s changing fire regime — implications for the vulnerability of its boreal forests
aDepartment of Geography, 2181 LeFrak Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
bDepartment of Forest Sciences, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775-7200, USA.
cUS Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA.
dNational Wildlife Refuge System, Anchorage, AK 99503, USA.
eAlaska Fire Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fort Wainwright, AK 99703, USA.
fUS National Park Service, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709, USA.
gDepartment of Geography and Planning, SUNY Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA.
hDepartment of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada.
Published on the web 28 June 2010.
Received August 26, 2009. Accepted February 16, 2010.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1313-1324, 10.1139/X10-098
Abstract
A synthesis was carried out to examine Alaska’s boreal forest fire regime. During the 2000s, an average of 767 000 ha·year–1 burned, 50% higher than in any previous decade since the 1940s. Over the past 60 years, there was a decrease in the number of lightning-ignited fires, an increase in extreme lightning-ignited fire events, an increase in human-ignited fires, and a decrease in the number of extreme human-ignited fire events. The fraction of area burned from human-ignited fires fell from 26% for the 1950s and 1960s to 5% for the 1990s and 2000s, a result from the change in fire policy that gave the highest suppression priorities to fire events that occurred near human settlements. The amount of area burned during late-season fires increased over the past two decades. Deeper burning of surface organic layers in black spruce (
References
- Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. 2009. ALASKA — Natural Systems Adaptation Option. Natural Systems Technical Working Group Report, 27 May 2009. Available from www.climatechange.alaska.gov/aag/docs/AAG7_NSTWG_OptnDescription_27May09.pdf.
- Balshi MS, McGuire AD, Zhuang Q, Mellilo J, Kicklighter DW, Kasischke E, Wirth C, Flannigan M, Harden J, Clein JS, Burnside TJ, McAllister J, Kurz WA, Apps M, Shvidenko A. 2007. The role of historical fire disturbance in the carbon dynamics of the pan-boreal region: a process-based analysis. J. Geophys. Res. 112: G02029.1 CrossRef.
- Calef MP, McGuire AD, Chapin FS III. 2008. Human influences on wildfire in Alaska from 1988 through 2005: an analysis of the spatial patterns of human impacts. Earth Interact. 12(1): 1-17 CrossRef.
- Chapin FS III, Trainor SF, Huntington O, Lovecraft AL, Zavaleta E, Natcher DC, McGuire AD, Nelson JL, Ray L, Calef M, Fresco N, Huntington H, Rupp TS, DeWilde L, Naylor RL. 2008. Increasing wildfire in Alaska’s boreal forest: pathways to potential solutions of a wicked problem. Bioscience 58(6): 531-540 CrossRef, ISI.
- Euskirchen ES, McGuire AD, Rupp ST, Chapin FS III, Walsh JE. 2009. Projected changes in atmospheric heating due to changes in fire disturbance and the snow season in the Western Arctic, 2003–2100. J. Geophys. Res. 114: G04022 CrossRef.
- Flannigan MD, Harrington JD. 1988. A study of the relation of meteorologic variables to monthly provincial area burned by wildfire in Canada. J. Appl. Meteorol. 27(4): 441-452 CrossRef.
- Gillett NP, Weaver AJ, Zwiers FW, Flannigan MD. 2004. Detecting the effect of climate change on Canadian forest fires. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31(18): L18211 CrossRef.
- Hartmann, B., and Wendler, G. 2003. Manifestation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shift of 1976 in Alaskan climatology. In Proceedings of the 7th AMS Conference on Polar Meteorology and Climatology, Hyannis, Massachusetts. American Meteorological Society, Boston, Mass.
- Hurrell, J.W., Kushnir, Y.Y., Ottersen, G., and Visbeck, M. 2003. The North Atlantic Oscillation: climatic significance and environmental impact. Geophysical Monograph Series No. 134. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C.
- Kane ES, Kasischke ES, Valentine DW, Turetsky MR, McGuire AD. 2007. Topographic influences on wildfire consumption of soil organic carbon in interior Alaska: implications for black carbon accumulation. J. Geophys. Res. 112: G03017 CrossRef.
- Kasischke ES, Turetsky MR. 2006. Recent changes in the fire regime across the North American boreal region — spatial and temporal patterns of burning across Canada and Alaska. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33(9): L09703 CrossRef.
- Kasischke, E.S., Rupp, T.S., and Verbyla, D.L. 2006. Fire trends in the Alaskan boreal forest. In Alaska’s changing boreal forest. Edited by F.S. Chapin III, M.W. Oswood, K. Van Cleve, L.A. Viereck, and D.L. Verbyla. Oxford University Press, New York. pp. 285–301.
- Key, C.H., and Benson, N.C. 2006. Landscape assessment: ground measure of severity, the Composite Burn Index; and remote sensing of severity, the Normalized Burn Ratio. In FIREMON: fire effects monitoring and inventory system. Edited by D.C. Lutes, R.E. Keane, J.F. Caratti, C.H. Key, N.C. Benson, S. Sutherland, and L.J. Gangi. U.S. For. Serv. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-164-CD. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden, Utah. pp. LA1–LA51.
- Lutz, H.J. 1959. In Aboriginal man and white man as historical causes of fires in the boreal forest, with particular reference to Alaska. Yale School of Forestry Publication No. 65. Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
- Lynch JA, Clark JS, Bigelow NH, Edwards ME, Finney BP. 2003. Geographic and temporal variations in fire history in boreal ecosystems of Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 108(8152): FFR8.1-FFR8.17 CrossRef.
- Lyons EA, Jin Y, Randerson JT. 2008. Changes in surface albedo after fire in boreal forest ecosystems of interior Alaska assessed using MODIS satellite observations. J. Geophys. Res. 113: G02012 CrossRef.
- Macias Fauria M, Johnson EA. 2006. Large-scale climatic patterns control large lightning fire occurrence in Canada and Alaska forest regions. J. Geophys. Res. 111: G04008 CrossRef.
- McGuiney, E., Shulski, M., and Wendler, G. 2005. Alaska lightning climatology and application to wildfire science. In Proceedings of the 85th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, San Diego, Calif. Available from ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/85059.pdf.
- Turetsky MR, Mack MC, Hollingsworth T, Harden JW. 2010. The role of mosses in ecosystem succession and function in Alaska’s boreal forest. Can. J. For. Res. 40(7) This issue CrossRef.
- Viereck LA. 1973. Wildfire in the taiga of Alaska. Quat. Res. 3(3): 465-495 CrossRef.
- Wein, R.W., and MacLean, D.A. (Editors). 1983. The role of fire in northern circumpolar ecosystems. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
- Yi S, McGuire AD, Harden J, Kasischke E, Manies K, Hinzman L, Liljedahl A, Randerson J, Liu H, Romanovsky V, Marchenko S, Kim Y. 2009. Interactions between soil thermal and hydrological dynamics in the response of Alaska ecosystems to fire disturbance. J. Geophys. Res. 114: G02015.1-G02015.20 CrossRef.
- Yoshikawa K, Bolton WR, Romanovsky VE, Fukuda M, Hinzman LD. 2002. Impacts of wildfire on the permafrost in the boreal forests of Interior Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 107(8148) CrossRef.
- Zhuang Q, McGuire AD, O’Neill KP, Harden JW, Romanovsky VE, Yarie J. 2002. Modeling soil thermal and carbon dynamics of a fire chronosequence in interior Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 107(8147) CrossRef.
Cited by
Spatiotemporal variation of surface shortwave forcing from fire-induced albedo change in interior Alaska
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2015, 45(3): 276-285, 10.1139/cjfr-2014-0309
A refinement of models projecting future Canadian fire regimes using homogeneous fire regime zones
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2014, 44(4): 365-376, 10.1139/cjfr-2013-0372
The role of mosses in ecosystem succession and function in Alaska’s boreal forestThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1237-1264, 10.1139/X10-072
Resilience of Alaska’s boreal forest to climatic changeThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1360-1370, 10.1139/X10-074
Resilience of Athabascan subsistence systems to interior Alaska’s changing climateThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1347-1359, 10.1139/X10-108
Resilience and vulnerability of permafrost to climate changeThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1219-1236, 10.1139/X10-060
Structure and resilience of fungal communities in Alaskan boreal forest soilsThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1288-1301, 10.1139/X10-081
The changing effects of Alaska’s boreal forests on the climate systemThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
This article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 2010, 40(7): 1336-1346, 10.1139/X09-209