THE PAST AND FUTURE DYNAMICS OF ECOSYSTEM COMBUSTION AND CLIMATE

Richard Paul Guyette, University of Missouri, Forestry, Columbia, MO, United States, Michael C Stambaugh, University of Missouri-Columbi, Columbia, MO, United States and Daniel C Dey, USFS Northern Station, Columbia, MO, United States

Contact First Author: Richard Paul Guyette; guyetter@missouri.edu

Previously Published Material: Partially presented at Great Plains Drought Conference, Omaha, Nebraska.Parts of this presentation in scientific Journals: Forest Science and Ecosystems

Abstract ID#: 35159

 

English Abstract:
Society is confronted with the effects of climate change on fire in ecosystems. Bringing paleo data and ecosystem processes into the future will increase the strength of estimating future conditions. We develop and calibrate an ecosystem combustion model (PC2FM1) with pre-climate change fire data, abiotic atmospheric variables (temperature K, H2O, and O2), and biotic variables (proxy reactant concentration) for predicting fire intervals and probability. We demonstrate a method for estimating changes in fire probability based on temperature and precipitation output from global climate models (GCMs). We calculated change in fire frequency and probabilities from the difference between current and future climates and map climate forced percent changes in fire probability under GCMs. Future fire probability estimates increased in cooler northern and high elevation regions, but decreased slightly in some hotter and drier regions. Our approach’s greatest strength may be reliance on only climate data and the basic principles of physical chemistry.

1Guyette, R.P., M.C. Stambaugh, D.C. Dey, and R.M. Muzika. (2012). Estimating fire frequency with the chemistry of climate. Ecosystems 15: 322-335.

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