Extreme fire weather (hot, dry, and windy conditions) has intensified globally, yet formally attributing this trend to anthropogenic climate change remains challenging.
Managing ecosystems in an era of rapid change is inherently challenging not only because of uncertainty in future climate but also due to diverse responses of ecosystems to climate. Projections of ecological transformation alongside information about plausible vegetation trajectories can help land managers explore divergent scenarios and consider how modeled outcomes match their observations.
Climate change is reducing winter snowpack and advancing spring snowmelt across the western United States (US), interacting with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections that drive spatially predictable interannual fluctuations that contribute to high- or low-snow winters.
Widespread impacts of landscape fire on ecosystems, societies, and the climate system itself have heightened the need to understand the potential future trajectory of fire under continued climate change. However, the complexity of fire makes climate change impact assessment challenging.
Changes in wildfire regimes may disrupt ecosystem processes as wildfires burn larger areas or burn more frequently than the recent natural range of variability. The climatic drivers of wildfire behavior may change in strength, but these effects are not likely to be uniform across space and different vegetation types.
Anticipating plausible future ecosystem states is necessary for effective ecosystem management. We use climate analog-based impact models and a co-production process with land managers to project future vegetation changes for the state of Oregon, United States, (2041–2070, RCP 8.5) at a management-relevant spatial resolution (270-m).
Background
Understanding the relative contribution of climate and human factors to wildfires is critical for managing risk across California’s diverse ecosystems, in the United States (US).
Aims
Climate change is impacting wildfires in the contiguous United States; thus, projections of fire danger under climate change have the potential to inform responses to changing wildfire risks.
Changing climate is altering the amount of carbon that can be sustained in forest ecosystems. Increasing heat and drought is already causing increased mortality and decreased regeneration in some locations. These changes have implications for landscape carbon storage with ongoing climate change.