Integrating plant physiology into simulation of fire behavior and effects
Abstract
Wildfires are a global crisis, but current fire models fail to capture vegetation response to changing climate. With drought and elevated temperature increasing the importance of vegetation dynamics to fire behavior, and the advent of next generation models capable of capturing increasingly complex physical processes, we provide a renewed focus on representation of woody vegetation in fire models. Currently, the most advanced representations of fire behavior and biophysical fire effects are found in distinct classes of fine‐scale models and do not capture variation in live fuel (i.e. living plant) properties. We demonstrate that plant water and carbon dynamics, which influence combustion and heat transfer into the plant and often dictate plant survival, provide the mechanistic linkage between fire behavior and effects. Our conceptual framework linking remotely sensed estimates of plant water and carbon to fine‐scale models of fire behavior and effects could be a critical first step toward improving the fidelity of the coarse scale models that are now relied upon for global fire forecasting. This process‐based approach will be essential to capturing the influence of physiological responses to drought and warming on live fuel conditions, strengthening the science needed to guide fire managers in an uncertain future.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 14, 2023
- Source ID
- 10.1111/nph.18770
Entities
People
- Adam Atchley
- Adam Collins
- Alexander Josephson
- Alexandra Jonko
- Andreas Bär
- Carolyn H. Sieg
- Chad Hoffman
- Chonggang Xu
- David R Weise
- E. Louise Loudermilk
- Emily S. Schultz-Fellenz
- François Pimont
- J. Kevin Hiers
- Jacquelyn K. Shuman
- Jean‐Luc Dupuy
- Joseph J. O'Brien
- Joseph Restaino
- Karla A. Sartor
- Lee T Dickman
- Marta Yebra
- Matthew D. Hurteau
- Michael R. Gallagher
- Molly Wright
- Nicholas S. Skowronski
- Nicolas Younes
- Rachael H. Nolan
- Raquel Partelli-Feltrin
- Rodman R. Linn
- Russell A. Parsons
- Sanna Sevanto
- Sean T. Michaletz
- Sharon M. Hood
- Shawn P Serbin
- Víctor Resco de Dios
- William Jolly
- Wu Ma
- Zachary Robbins
- İlkay Altıntaş
Organizations
- Australian National University
- Australian Research Council
- Australian Research Data Commons
- Austrian Science Fund
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory
- Colorado State University
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Ministry of Science of Spain
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
- Northern Research Station
- Office of Biological and Environmental Research
- Pacific Southwest Research Station
- Rocky Mountain Research Station
- Southern Research Station
- Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy
- United States Department of Defense
- United States Forest Service
- University of British Columbia
- University of California, San Diego
- University of Innsbruck
- University of Lleida
- University of New Mexico
- Western Sydney University