Long-term perspective on wildfires in the western USA Marlon, Jennifer R; Bartlein, Patrick J; Gavin, Daniel G ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
02/2012, Letnik:
109, Številka:
9
Journal Article
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Understanding the causes and consequences of wildfires in forests of the western United States requires integrated information about fire, climate changes, and human activity on multiple temporal ...scales. We use sedimentary charcoal accumulation rates to construct long-term variations in fire during the past 3,000 y in the American West and compare this record to independent fire-history data from historical records and fire scars. There has been a slight decline in burning over the past 3,000 y, with the lowest levels attained during the 20th century and during the Little Ice Age (LIA, ca. 1400–1700 CE Common Era). Prominent peaks in forest fires occurred during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca. 950–1250 CE) and during the 1800s. Analysis of climate reconstructions beginning from 500 CE and population data show that temperature and drought predict changes in biomass burning up to the late 1800s CE. Since the late 1800s , human activities and the ecological effects of recent high fire activity caused a large, abrupt decline in burning similar to the LIA fire decline. Consequently, there is now a forest "fire deficit" in the western United States attributable to the combined effects of human activities, ecological, and climate changes. Large fires in the late 20th and 21st century fires have begun to address the fire deficit, but it is continuing to grow.
Over the past several decades, high-resolution sediment-charcoal records have been increasingly used to reconstruct local fire history. Data analysis methods usually involve a decomposition that ...detrends a charcoal series and then applies a threshold value to isolate individual peaks, which are interpreted as fire episodes. Despite the proliferation of these studies, methods have evolved largely in the absence of a thorough statistical framework. We describe eight alternative decomposition models (four detrending methods used with two threshold-determination methods) and evaluate their sensitivity to a set of known parameters integrated into simulated charcoal records. Results indicate that the combination of a globally defined threshold with specific detrending methods can produce strongly biased results, depending on whether or not variance in a charcoal record is stationary through time. These biases are largely eliminated by using a locally defined threshold, which adapts to changes in variability throughout a charcoal record. Applying the alternative decomposition methods on three previously published charcoal records largely supports our conclusions from simulated records. We also present a minimum-count test for empirical records, which reduces the likelihood of false positives when charcoal counts are low. We conclude by discussing how to evaluate when peak detection methods are warranted with a given sediment-charcoal record.
Recent evidence suggests that reduced water infiltration may be linked to small scale microbial and/or chemical processes that cause subcritical water repellency. We measured water sorptivity on the ...surface of a large intact block of soil (0.9 m wide, 1.3 m long, 0.25 m deep) taken from a grassland site and examined the effects of surface elevation and water repellency on water sorptivity at the millimeter scale. The soil block was partially dried to 0.22 mm3 mm-3, appeared to wet readily, and is not severely water repellent at any water content. Water sorptivity varied from 0.1 to 0.8 mm s-1/2 across the sampling grid with a coefficient of variation (CV) of 0.57. Water repellency, determined by comparing water and ethanol sorptivities, also varied considerably (CV = 0.47). Geostatistical analyses of water sorptivity and repellency measurements found little evidence of spatial autocorrelation, suggesting a high degree of local variability. These data were compared to larger scale measurements obtained with conventional infiltrometers under tension conditions (40 mm contact radius), and ponded conditions (37 and 55 mm radius rings) where macropores influence infiltration heterogeneity. Larger scale tension infiltrometer measurements were less variable with a CV of 0.22, whereas ponded infiltrometer measurements were more variable, CV > 0.50, presumably because of the influence of macropore flow. Data collected on surface elevation showed that ponded infiltration but not tension infiltration was influenced by surface topography. The results suggested that repellency can induce levels of spatial variability in water transport at small scales comparable to what macropores induce at larger scales.
Pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs), and charcoal particle stratigraphies are used to determine environmental change at Glenmire, Point Reyes Peninsula, northcentral coastal California, over the ...last c. 6200 years. Pollen was not preserved in early Holocene sediments when climate was drier than present. However, groundwater tables rose after c. 6200 cal. BP, allowing for greater subsequent preservation of organic matter. Middle and late Holocene environments were a mosaic of vegetation types, including mixed conifer forest with coastal scrub grassland prior to c. 4000 cal. BP. Subsequently, hardwoods such as alder (Alnus) and coastal scrub (e.g. Artemisia, Baccharis) expanded until c. 2200 cal. BP, followed by tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). With increasing amounts of oak (Quercus), this mosaic of vegetation types continued to dominate until the arrival of Euro-Americans in the early to mid-1800s. The fire history is probably tied closely to human settlement, since natural ignitions are rare. Elevated charcoal amounts coincide with increased sedentism of the native populations by about 3500 cal. BP. Increased sedentism may have caused a more intense and constant use of the coastal environment around Glenmire. For the most recent centuries, we compared historical records of explorations, Spanish Mission establishment, consolidation of the native Coast Miwok population, ranching by Mexican nationals, and dairying by Americans at the height of California’s gold rush with the paleoecological record. The Glenmire record thus documents changing fire use following the ad 1793 fire suppression proclamation; declines in native forest species; introductions of non-native species, including those associated with livestock grazing and land disturbance; and an increase in coprophilous fungi (NPPs) associated with the presence of large numbers of sheep and cattle, among other changes. During the historical period, the sedimentary record of historical fires closely matches the nearby fire-scar tree-ring record.
The environmental history of the Kootenay Valley in the southern Canadian Rockies was reconstructed using lake sediment from Dog Lake, British Columbia, and compared to other paleoenvironmental ...studies in the region to understand how vegetation dynamics and fire regimes responded to climate change during the Holocene. A pollen-based vegetation reconstruction indicates five periods of vegetation change. At 10,300 cal yr B.P. Pinus-Juniperus parkland colonized the valley and by 7600 cal yr B.P. was replaced by mixed stands of Pinus, Picea and Pseudotsuga/Larix. Fire frequencies increased to their Holocene maximums during the 8200-4000 cal yr B.P. period. From 5500-4500 cal yr B.P. Pseudotsuga/Larix reached its maximum extent in the Kootenay Valley under a more frequent fire regime. At 5000 cal yr B.P. Picea and Abies began to expand in the area and by 4500 cal yr B.P. the forest shifted to a closed montane spruce forest type with dramatically reduced fire frequency. The shift to less frequent forest fires after 4500 cal yr B.P., along with a moisterPicea - dominated closed forest, corresponds to Neoglacial advances in the Canadian Rockies and Coast Mountains. Fire intervals after 4000 cal yr B.P. are significantly longer than the shorter fire intervals of the early to mid Holocene. A return to drier, more open forest condition occurs between 2400-1200 cal yr B.P. with a slight increase in fire activity and summer drought events. Lower lake levels inferred by charophyte accumulation rates during the 2400-1200 cal yr B.P. interval support this moisture regime shift. An abrupt shift toPicea dominated forest occurred from 1200-1000 cal yr B.P. and a final period of wet-closed forest cover reaches its maximum extent from 700-150 cal yr B.P. that appears to be a response to Little Ice Age cooling. Present forests are within their natural range of variability but are predicted to shift again to a drier more open structure with increased Pseudotsuga/Larix cover. More frequent stand replacing fires and increased area burned likely will accompany this change due to continued global warming.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Little is known about the role of fire in the mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana (Bong.) Carrière) rain forests of southern British Columbia. High-resolution analysis of macroscopic charcoal from ...lake sediment cores, along with 102 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) ages on soil charcoal, was used to reconstruct the long-term fire history around two subalpine lakes in the southern Coast and North Cascade Mountains. AMS ages on soil charcoal provide independent evidence of local fire around a lake and support the interpretation of peaks in lake sediment charcoal as distinct fire events during the Holocene. Local fires are rare, with intervals ranging from centuries to several millennia at some sites. Overall fire frequency varied continuously throughout the Holocene, suggesting that fire regimes are linked to climate via large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Fires were frequent between 11 000 and 8800 calendar years BP during the warm and dry early Holocene. The onset of humid conditions in the mid-Holocene, as rain forest taxa established in the region, produced a variable fire period until 3500 calendar years BP. A synchronous decrease in fire frequency from 3500 to 2400 calendar years BP corresponds to Neoglacial advances in the region and cool humid climate. A return of frequent fire between 2400 and 1300 calendar years BP suggests that prolonged summer drought occurred more often during this interval, which we name the Fraser Valley Fire Period. The present-day fire regime was established after 1300 calendar years BP.
Giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum Lindl. J. Buchholz) preserve a detailed history of fire within their annual rings. We developed a 3000 year chronology of fire events in one of the largest ...extant groves of ancient giant sequoias, the Giant Forest, by sampling and tree-ring dating fire scars and other fire-related indicators from 52 trees distributed over an area of about 350 ha. When all fire events were included in composite chronologies, the mean fire intervals (years between fires of any size) declined as a function of increasing spatial extent from tree, to group, to multiple groups, to grove scales: 15.5 yr (0.1 ha), 7.4 yr (1 ha.), 3.0 yr (70 ha), and 2.2 yr (350 ha), respectively. We interpreted widespread fires (i.e., fire events recorded on >or=2 trees, or >or=25 % of all trees recording fires within composites) to have occurred in areas of 70 ha to 350 ha at mean intervals ranging from about 6 yr to 35 yr. We compared the annual, multi-decadal and centennial variations in Giant Forest fire frequency with those documented in tree-ring and charcoal-based fire chronologies from four other giant sequoia groves in the Sierra Nevada, and with independent tree-ring-based reconstructions of summer drought and temperatures. The other giant sequoia fire histories (tree rings and charcoal-based) were significantly (P < 0.001) correlated with the Giant Forest fire frequency record and independent climate reconstructions, and confirm a maximum fire frequency during the warm and drought-prone period from 800 C.E. to 1300 C.E. (Common Era). This was the driest period of the past two millennia, and it may serve as an analog for warming and drying effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the next few decades. Sequoias can sustain very high fire frequencies, and historically they have done so during warm, dry times. We suggest that preparation of sequoia groves for anticipated warming may call for increasing the rate of prescribed burning in most parts of the Giant Forest.
High-resolution charcoal analysis of lake sediments and stand-age information were used to reconstruct a 1000-year fire history around Dog Lake, which is located in the montane spruce zone of ...southeastern British Columbia. Macroscopic charcoal (>125,um) accumulation rates (CHAR) from lake sediment were compared with a modern stand-origin map and fire-scar dates in the Kootenay Valley to determine the relative area and proximity of fires recorded as CHAR peaks. Small fires close to the lake and larger more distant fires appear as similar-sized peaks in the record. This information reinforces previous findings where CHAR peaks represent a complex spatial aggregation of local to extra-local fires around a lake site. CHAR peaks indicate frequent stand-destroying fires during the 'Mediaeval Warm Period' (-AD 1000-1300), and other significant fires at c. 1360, 1500, 1610 and 1800. We also present a proxy measure of lake-level changes based on a comparison of accumulation rates of Chara globulanis-type oospores over the last millennium and the present distribution of charophytes in the lake basin. Lower water levels, represented by few or no Chara oospores, correspond to times of regional drought and large forest fires around the lake. Higher lake levels, represented by increased Chara oospore accumulation rates, correspond to wetter climate periods during the Oort, Wolf, Sporer and Maunder solar sunspot minima, when little or no fire activity occurs around the lake.
To investigate postglacial environmental changes in both the coastal and interior wet belts of British Columbia, fossil midges were analysed from two subalpine lakes, one adjacent to the lower Fraser ...canyon (Frozen Lake), and the other in Mount Revelstoke National Park (Eagle Lake). The midge stratigraphy for Frozen Lake revealed an abundance of rheophilous chironomid taxa and Simuliidae larvae, refecting the presence of an inflowing stream. An abundance of Chaoborus mandibles and Microtendipes during the early Holocene (c. 10100–7700 14C years BP, c. 11500–8500 cal. years BP) suggests warmer temperatures. A subsequent decline in the warm indicators and relative increases in cold stenotherms (Heterotrissocladius and Diamesa) indicate cooling until present day. This climate reconstruction is consistent with other quantitative and qualitative evidence for past climatic change in southern British Columbia. At Eagle Lake the warm indicators, Dicrotendipes and Polypedilum, are seen in the early Holocene (c. 8500–6730 14C years BP, c. 9600–7600 cal. years BP), but are absent during the mid-Holocene when cooler temperatures probably prevailed. In the late Holocene (c. 3800 14C years BP to present, c. 4200 cal. years BP to present) there is a resurgence of warm indicators, which contrasts with the evidence of continued cooling typically seen in reconstructions of southern British Columbia summer temperatures. The Eagle Lake record therefore appears to be anomalous. Multiproxy and multisite investigations are needed to reconstruct Holocene climatic changes more reliably.
Millennial-scale records of forest fire provide important baseline information for ecosystem management, especially in regions with too few recent fires to describe the historical range of ...variability. Charcoal records from lake sediments and soil profiles are well suited for reconstructing the incidence of past fire and its relationship to changing climate and vegetation. We highlight several records from western North America and their relevance in reconstructing historical forest dynamics, fire-climate relationships, and feedbacks between vegetation and fire under climate change. Climatic effects on fire regimes are evident in many regions, but comparisons of paleo-fire records sometimes show a lack of synchrony, indicating that local factors substantially affect fire occurrence, even over long periods. Furthermore, the specific impacts of vegetation change on fire regimes differ among regions with different vegetation histories. By documenting the effects on fire patterns of major changes in climate and vegetation, paleo-fire records can be used to test the mechanistic models required for the prediction of future variations in fire.
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