Climatic variability regulates the occurrence and extent of large fires in the subalpine forests of the Canadian Rockies

Ecosphere

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2011, Pages

  Mori, Akira S ^a,b  

^a YOKOHAMA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Japan)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY   (Canada)

Author keywords

Climatic teleconnection; Ecosystem management; El Ni o Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Fire disturbances; Fire suppression; Fuel build ups; Kootenay National Park (KNP); Loaded fuels; Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)

Indexed keywords

EID: 84856579218     PISSN: None     EISSN: 21508925     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1890/ES10-00174.1     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Achuff, P. L., W. D. Holland, G. M. Coen, and L. Van Tishem. 1989. Ecological land classification of Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. Alberta Institute of Pedology, Edmonton.
2. Barlow, M., S. Nigam, and E. H. Berbery. 2001. ENSO, Pacific decadal variability, and U.S. summertime precipitation, drought, and streamflow. Journal of Climate 14:2105-2128.
3. Bessie, W. C., and E. A. Johnson. 1995. The relative importance of fuels and weather on fire behavior in subalpine forests. Ecology 76:747-762.
4. Bigler, C., D. Kulakowski, and T. T. Veblen. 2005. Multiple disturbance interactions and drought influence fire severity in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecology 86:3018-3029. (Pubitemid 41677453)
5. Biondi, F., A. Gershunov, and D. R. Cayan. 2001. North Pacific decadal climate variability since AD 1661. Journal of Climate 14:5-10. (Pubitemid 32277152)
6. Bonsal, B. R., and R. G. Lawford. 1999. Teleconnections between El Niño and La Niña events and summer extended dry spells on the Canadian Prairies. International Journal of Climatology 19:1445-1458. (Pubitemid 30054522)
7. Bonsal, B. R., A. K. Hakravarti, and R. G. Lawford. 1993. Teleconnections between North Pacific SST anomalies and growing season extended dry spells on the Canadian Prairies. International Journal of Climatology 13:865-878.
8. British Columbia Ministry of Forests. 2004. The state of British Columbia's forests. British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
9. Brown, P. M., E. K. Heyerdahl, S. G. Kitchen, and M. H. Weber. 2008. Climate effects on historical fires (1630-1900) in Utah. International Journal of Wildland Fire 17:28-39. (Pubitemid 351271432)
10. Buechling, A., and W. L. Baker. 2004. A fire history from tree rings in a high-elevation forest of Rocky Mountain National Park. Canadian Journal for Forest Research 34:1259-1273. (Pubitemid 39224980)
11. Cook, E. R. 2000. Niño3 Index Reconstruction. International Tree-Ring Data Bank. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center-A for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2000-052. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
12. Cook, E. R., D. M. Meko, D. W. Stahle, and M. K. Cleaveland. 2004a. North American Summer PDSI Reconstructions. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2004-045. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
13. Cook, E. R., C. A. Woodhouse, C. M. Eakin, D. M. Meko, and D. W. Stahle. 2004b. Long-Term Aridity Changes in the Western United States. Science 306:1015-1018. (Pubitemid 39482901)
14. De Long, S. G., G. D. Sutherland, L. D. Daniels, B. H. Heemskerk, and K. O. Storaunet. 2008. Temporal dynamics of snags and development of snag habitats in wet spruce-fir stands in east-central British Columbia. Forest Ecology and Management 255:3613-3620.
15. Goetz, S. J., M. C. Mack, K. R. Gurney, J. T. Randerson, and R. A. Houghton. 2007. Ecosystem responses to recent climate change and fire disturbance at northern high latitudes: observations and model results contrasting northern Eurasia and North America. Environmental Research Letters 2:045031.
16. Goff, H. L., M. D. Flannigan, Y. Bergeron, and M. P. Girardin. 2007. Historical fire regime shifts related to climate teleconnections in the Waswanipi area, central Quebec, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire 16:607-618. (Pubitemid 350017584)
17. Hallett, D. J., R. W. Mathewes, and R. C. Walker. 2003. A 1000-year record of forest fire, drought and lakelevel change in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. Holocene. 13:751-761. (Pubitemid 37110740)
18. Hallett, D. J., and R. C. Walker. 2000. Paleoecology and its application to fire and vegetation management in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. Journal of Paleolimnology 24:401-414.
19. Hessl, A., D. McKenzie, and R. Schellhaas. 2004. Drought and Pacific Decadal Oscillation linked to fire occurrence in the Inland Pacific Northwest. Ecological Applications 14:425-442. (Pubitemid 38370904)
20. Heyerdahl, E. K., D. McKenzie, L. D. Daniels, A. E. Hessl, J. S. Littell, and N. J. Mantua. 2008. Climate drivers of regionally synchronous fires in the inland Northwest (1651-1900). International Journal of Wildland Fire 17:40-49. (Pubitemid 351278370)
21. Howe, E., and W. L. Baker. 2003. Landscape heterogeneity and disturbance interactions in a subalpine watershed in northern Colorado, USA. Association of American Geographers 93:797-813. (Pubitemid 41716639)
22. Johnson, E. A., and G. I. Fryer. 1987. Historical vegetation change in the Kananaskis Valley, Canadian Rockies. Canadian Journal of Botany 65:853-858.
23. Johnson, E. A., and D. R. Wowchuk. 1993. Wildfires in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains and their relationship to mid-tropospheric anomalies. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 23:1213-1222. (Pubitemid 24395176)
24. Kaplan, A., M. Cane, Y. Kushnir, A. Clement, M. Blumenthal, and B. Rajagopalan. 1998. Analyses of global sea surface temperature 1856-1991. Journal of Geophysical Research 103:18567-18589.
25. Kashian, D. M., M. G. Turner, W. H. Romme, and C. G. Lorimer. 2005. Variability and convergence in stand structural development on a fire-dominated subalpine landscape. Ecology 86:643-654. (Pubitemid 40383862)
26. Keane, R. E., J. K. Age, P. Fule, J. E. Keeley, C. Key, S. G. Kichen, R. Miller, and L. A. Schulte. 2008. Ecological effects of large fires on US landscapes: benefit or catastrophe? International Journal of Wildland Fire 17:696-712.
27. Kipfmueller, K. F., and W. L. Baker. 2000. A fire history of a subalpine forest in south-eastern Wyoming, USA. Journal of Biogeography 27:71-85. (Pubitemid 30597047)
28. Kitzberger, T., T. Swetnam, and T. Veblen. 2001. Interhemispheric synchrony of forest fires and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 10:315-326.
29. Kitzberger, T., P. M. Brown, E. K. Heyerdahl, T. T. Veblen, and T. W. Swetnam. 2007. Contingent Pacific-Atlantic Ocean influence on multi-century fire synchrony over western North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 104:543-548. (Pubitemid 46123061)
30. Mantua, N. J., and S. R. Hare. 2002. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Journal of Oceanography 58:35-44. (Pubitemid 34609349)
31. Mantua, N. J. S. R. Hare, Y. Zhang, J. M. Wallace, and R. C. Francis. 1997. A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78:1069-1079.
32. Macias Fauria, M., and E. A. Johnson. 2006. Large-scale climatic patterns control large lightning fire occurrence in Canada and Alaska forest regions. Journal of Geophysical Research 111:G04008.
33. Macias Fauria, M., and E. A. Johnson. 2008. Climate and wildfires in the North American boreal forest. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:2317-2329. (Pubitemid 351770601)
34. Margolis, E. Q., T. W. Swetnam, and C. D. Allen. 2007. A stand-replacing fire history in upper montane forests of the southern Rocky Mountains. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37:2227-2241. (Pubitemid 351195041)
35. Masters, A. M. 1990. Changes in forest fire frequency in Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies. Canadian Journal of Botany 68:1763-1767.
36. Meidinger, D., and J. Pojar. 1991. Ecosystems of British Columbia. British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
37. Miller, J. D., H. D. Safford, M. Crimmins, and A. E. Thods. 2009. Quantitative evidence for increasing forest fire severity in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Mountains, California and Nevada. USA. Ecosystems 12:16-32.
38. Morgan, P., E. K. Heyerdahl, and C. E. Gibson. 2008. Multi-season climate synchronized forest fires throughout the 20th century, northern Rockies, USA. Ecology 89:717-728. (Pubitemid 351559543)
39. Mori, A. S., and K. P. Lertzman. 2011. Historic variability in fire-generated landscape heterogeneity of subalpine forests in the Canadian Rockies. Journal of Vegetation Science 22:45-58[doi: 10.1111/ j.1654-1103.2010.01230.x]
40. Nash, C. H., and E. A. Johnson. 1996. Synoptic climatology of lightning-caused forest fires in subalpine and boreal forests. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 26:1859-1874. (Pubitemid 27005955)
41. Norman, S., and A. Taylor. 2003. Tropical and north Pacific teleconnections influence fire regimes in pine-dominated forests of north-eastern California, USA. Journal of Biogeography 30:1081-1092. (Pubitemid 36821360)
42. Noss, R. F., J. F. Franklin, W. L. Baker, T. Schoennagel, and P. B. Moyle. 2006. Managing fire-prone forests in the western United States. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 4:481-487. (Pubitemid 44715012)
43. Renkin, R. A., and D. G. Despain. 1992. Fuel moisture, forest type, and lightning-caused fire in Yellowstone National Park. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 22:37-45.
44. Rollins, M. G., T. W. Swetnam, and P. Morgan. 2001. Evaluating a century of fire patterns in two Rocky Mountain wilderness areas using digital fire atlases. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31:2107-2123. (Pubitemid 34190544)
45. Romme, W. H. 2005. The importance of multiscale spatial heterogeneity in wildland fire management and research. Pages 353-366 in G. M. Lovett, M. G. Turner, C. G. Jones, and K. C. Weathers, editors. Ecosystem function in heterogeneous landscapes. Springer-Verlag, New York, USA
46. Schoennagel, T., T. T. Veblen, and W. H. Romme. 2004. The interaction of fire, fuels, and climate across Rocky Mountain forests. BioScience 54:661-676. (Pubitemid 38940963)
47. Schoennagel, T., T. T. Veblen, W. H. Romme, J. S. Sibold, and E. R. Cook. 2005. ENSO and PDO variability affect drought-induced fire occurrence in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecological Applications 15:2000-2014. (Pubitemid 43112060)
48. Schoennagel, T., T. T. Veblen, D. Kulakowski, and A. Holz. 2007. Multidecadal climate variability and climate interactions affect subalpine fire occurrence, western Colorado (USA). Ecology 88:2891-2902. (Pubitemid 351345092)
49. Sibold, J. S., and T. T. Veblen. 2006. Relationships of subalpine forest fires in the Colorado Front Range with interannual and multidecadal-scale climatic variation. Journal of Biogeography 33:833-842.
50. Sibold, J. S., T. T. Veblen, and M. E. González. 2006. Spatial and temporal variation in historic fire regimes in subalpine forests across the Colorado Front Range in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. Journal of Biogeography 32:631-647.
51. Skinner,W. R., B. J. Stocks, D. L. Martell, B. Bonsal, and A. Shabbar. 1999. The association between circulation anomalies in the mid-troposphere and area burned by wildland fire in Canada. Theoretical Applied Climatology 63:89-105. (Pubitemid 29465174)
52. Skinner, W. R., M. D. Flannigan, B. J. Stocks, D. L. Martell, B. M.Wotton, J. B. Todd, J. A. Mason, K. A. Logan, and E. M. Bosch. 2002. A 500hPa synoptic wildland climatology for large Canadian Forest Fires 1959-1996. Theoretical Applied Climatology 71:157-169. (Pubitemid 34246845)
53. Skinner, W. R., A. Shabbar, M. D. Flannigan, and K. Logan. 2006. Large forest fires in Canada and the relationship to global sea surface temperatures. Journal of Geophysical Research 111:D14106.
54. Taylor, A. H., V. Trouet,, and C. N. Skinner. 2008. Climatic influences on fire regimes in montane forests of the southern Cascades, California, USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire 17:60-71. (Pubitemid 351271433)
55. Tinker, D. B., W. H. Romme, and D. G. Despain. 2003. Historic range of variability in landscape structure in subalpine forests of the Greater Yellowstone Area, USA. Landscape Ecology 18:427-439. (Pubitemid 37399911)
56. Trouet, V., A. H. Taylor, A. M. Carleton, and C. N. Skinner. 2006. Fire-climate interactions in forests of the American Pacific coast. Geophysical Research Letters 33:L18704.
57. Trouet, V., A. H. Taylor, A. M. Carleton, and C. N. Skinner. 2009. Interannual variations in fire weather, fire extent, and synoptic-scale circulation patterns in northern California and Oregon. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 95:349-360.
58. Turner, M. G., W. H. Romme, and D. B. Tinker. 2003. Surprises and lessons from the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1:351-358.
59. Watson, E., and B. H. Luckman. 2004. Tree-ring based reconstructions of precipitation for the southern Canadian Cordillera. Climatic Change 65:209-241. (Pubitemid 39123026)
60. Westerling, A. L., H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, and T. W. Swetnam. 2006. Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science 313:940-943.
61. Westerling, A. L., and T. W. Swetnam. 2003. Interannual to decadal drought and wildfire in the western United States. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 84:545-560.
62. Williams, R. J., and R. A. Bradstock. 2008. Large fires and their ecological consequences: introduction to the special issue. International Journal of Wildland Fire 17:685-687.
63. Woodland, F. I., M. R. Loman, and T. Quaife. 2008. Global responses of terrestrial productivity to ccontemporary climatic oscillations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:2779-2785. (Pubitemid 351989771)
64. Zhang, Y., J. M. Wallace, and D. S. Battisti. 1997. ENSO-like interdecadal variability: 1900-93. Journal of Climate 10:1004-1020. (Pubitemid 27502343)