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| Studying the effects of climate change and altered fire regimes in alpine areas in China ©Barry B. Baker |
Changes in climate have the potential to significantly affect fire regimes, especially in areas where climate, and not fuel, tends to be the limiting factor. Conversely, fire—by emitting greenhouse gases and aerosols—is also thought to contribute to overall global warming.
A number of studies have been conducted on the likely effects of climate change on present-day fire regimes. In temperate regions, including the western U.S., Australia and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, some researchers are predicting that increased temperature will extend typical fire seasons, with more fires occurring earlier and later in a given year. Although the effects will likely vary considerably among different ecosystem types, the total area burned will increase in some regions, as will fire severity and related economic losses. Fire suppression efforts will not keep pace with these changes, and many fires may effectively burn through remote landscapes unimpeded by control efforts. Increased fire frequency and severity could also increase the risk that some rare species and ecosystem types will be lost.
Tropical forests globally have warmed by half a degree in the last 20 years, and this is expected to increase by a further 3 to 8 degrees by the end of the century. In tropical rainforests, specifically, global warming could exacerbate existing problems stemming from forest fragmentation, agricultural burning and other human uses if it promotes drier climates or stronger El Niño-Southern Oscillation droughts.
| Researchers used standard climate change scenarios to investigate the likely effects of global warming on wildland fire and suppression effectiveness in northern California. They predicted that global warming would foster the creation of faster, hotter fires that would be more difficult to contain and therefore affect larger areas. In most cases, this would lead to steep increases in both the annual area burned and the number of potentially catastrophic fires. Losses were projected to double in some regions. – Source: Fried et al. 2004 |
Selected References
- Dale, V.H., L.A. Joyce, S. McNulty, R.P. Neilson, M.P. Ayres, M.D. Flannigan, P.J. Hanson, L.C. Irland, A.E. Lugo, C.J. Peterson, D. Simberloff, F.J. Swanson, B.J. Stocks, and B. M. Wotton. 2001. Climate change and forest disturbance. Bioscience 51:723-734.
- Fried, J.S., M.S. Torn, and E. Mills. 2004. The impact of climate change on wildfire severity: a regional forecast for Northern California. Climatic Change 64:169-191.
- Goldammer, J.G. and C. Price. 1998. Potential impacts of climate change on fire regimes in the tropics based on MAGICC and a GISS GCM-derived lightning model. Climatic Change 39:273-296.
- Mahli, Y. and O. Phillips. Editors. 2005. Tropical Forests and Global Atmospheric Change. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- McKenzie, D., Z. Gedalof, D.L. Peterson, and P. Mote. 2004. Climatic change, wildfire, and conservation. Conservation Biology 18(4):890-902.
- Noss, R. 2001. Beyond Kyoto: forest management in a time of rapid climate change. Conservation Biology 15(3):578-590.
- Saunders, S., T. Easley, J.A. Logan, and T. Spencer. 2006. Losing Ground:
Western National Parks Threatened by Climate Disruption. The Rocky
Mountain Climate Organization, Louisville, CO; Natural Resources
Defense Council, Washington, DC.
- W.F. Laurance and G. B. Williamson. 2001. Positive feedbacks among forest fragmentation, drought, and climate change in the Amazon. Conservation Biology 15(6):1529-1535.
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Westerling, A.L., H.G. Hidalgo, D.R. Cayan, and T.W. Swetnam. 2006. Warming and Earlier Spring Increases Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity. Available online at: www.sciencexpress.org / 6 July 2006 / Page 1/ 10.1126/science.1128834.
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