Controls on interannual variability in lightning-caused fire activity in the western US

Environmental Research Letters

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2016, Pages

  Abatzoglou, John T ^a   Kolden, Crystal A ^a   Balch, Jennifer K ^b   Bradley, Bethany A ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS   (United States)

Author keywords

climate; modeling; wildfire

Indexed keywords

FIRES; LIGHTNING; MODELS;

CLIMATE; CLOUD-TO-GROUND LIGHTNING; GEOGRAPHIC VARIABILITY; INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY; LIGHTNING FREQUENCY; PREDOMINANT CONTROL; WESTERN UNITED STATES; WILDFIRE;

CLOUDS;

ANNUAL VARIATION; BURNING; CLIMATE CONDITIONS; CLIMATE MODELING; CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING; FIRE MANAGEMENT; GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATION; LIGHTNING; NADIR; SPATIOTEMPORAL ANALYSIS; WILDFIRE;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 84964595315     PISSN: 17489318     EISSN: 17489326     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/045005     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Abatzoglou J T 2013 Development of gridded surface meteorological data for ecological applications and modelling Int. J. Climatol. 33 121-31
2. Abatzoglou J T and Kolden C A 2011 Relative importance of weather and climate on wildfire growth in interior Alaska Int. J. Wildland Fire 20 479-86
3. Abatzoglou J T and Kolden C A 2013 Relationships between climate and macroscale area burned in the western United States Int. J. Wildland Fire 22 1003-20
4. Allen R G, Pereira L S, Raes D and Smith M 1998 Crop evapotranspiration: guidelines for computing crop water requirements FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56 300 D05109
5. Archibald S, Roy D P, Wilgen V, Brian W and Scholes R J 2009 What limits fire? An examination of drivers of burnt area in Southern Africa Glob. Change Biol. 15 613-30
6. Anderegg W R L, Kane J M and Anderegg L D L 2012 Consequences of widespread tree mortality triggered by drought and temperature stress Nat. Clim. Change 3 30-6
7. Balch J K, Bradley B A, D'Antonio C and Gomez-Dans J 2013 Introduced annual grass increases regional fire activity across the arid western USA (1980-2009) Glob. Change Biol. 19 173-83
8. Balch J K, Nepstad D C, Brando P M, Curran L M, Portela O, Carvalho O Jr and Lefebvre P 2008 A negative fire feedback in a transitional forest of Southeastern Amazonia Glob. Change Biol. 14 2276-87
9. Balshi M S, McGuire A D, Duffy P, Flannigan M, Walsh J and Melillo J 2009 Assessing the response of area burned to changing climate in western boreal North America using a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) approach Glob. Change Biol. 15 578-600
10. Barbero R, Abatzoglou J T, Larkin N K, Kolden C A and Stocks B 2015 Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous United States Int. J. Wildland Fire 24 892-9
11. Barbero R, Abatzoglou J T, Steel E A and Larkin N K 2014 Modeling very large-fire occurrences over the continental United States from weather and climate forcing Environ. Res. Lett. 9 124009
12. Bartlein P J, Hostetler S W, Shafer S L, Holman J O and Solomon A M 2008 Temporal and spatial structure in a daily wildfire-start data set from the western United States (1986-96) Int. J. Wildland Fire 17 8-17
13. Dennison P E, Brewer S C, Arnold J D and Moritz M A 2014 Large wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984-2011 Geophys. Res. Lett. 41 2928-33
14. Dowdy A J and Mills G A 2012 Atmospheric and fuel moisture characteristics associated with lightning-attributed fires J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol. 51 2025-37
15. Flannigan M D, Krawchuk M A, de Groot W J, Wotton B M and Gowman L M 2009 Implications of changing climate for global wildland fire Int. J. Wildland Fire 18 483-507
16. Flannigan M D and Wotton B M 1991 Lightning-ignited forest fires in Northwestern Ontario Can. J. Forest Res. 21 277-87
17. Fuquay D M 1982 Positive cloud-to-ground lightning in summer thunderstorms J. Geophys. Res. 87 7131-40
18. Hall B L 2007 Precipitation associated with lightning-ignited wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico Int. J. Wildland Fire 16 242-54
19. Higuera P E, Abatzoglou J T, Littell J S and Morgan P 2015 The changing strength and nature of fire-climate relationships in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA, 1902-2008 PloS ONE 10 e0127563
20. Kloster S, Mahowald N M, Randerson J T, Thornton P E, Hoffman F M, Levis S, Lawrence P J, Feddema J J, Oleson K W and Lawrence D M 2010 Fire dynamics during the 20th century simulated by the Community Land Model Biogeosciences 7 1877-902
21. Krause A, Kloster S, Wilkenskjeld S and Paeth H 2014 The sensitivity of global wildfires to simulated past, present, and future lightning frequency J. Geophys. Res.: Biogeosci. 119 312-22
22. Krawchuk M A, Cumming S G and Flannigan M D 2009 Predicted changes in fire weather suggest increases in lightning fire initiation and future area burned in the mixedwood boreal forest Clim. Change 92 83-97
23. Krawchuk M A, Cumming S G, Flannigan M D and Wein R W 2006 Biotic and abiotic regulation of lightning fire initiation in the mixedwood boreal forest Ecology 87 458-68
24. Knorr W, Kaminski T, Arneth A and Weber U 2014 Impact of human population density on fire frequency at the global scale Biogeosciences 11 1085-102
25. Latham D and Williams E 2001 Lightning and forest fires Forest Fires: Behavior and Ecological Effects ed E A Johnson and K Miyanishi (San Diego, CA: Academic) pp 375-418
26. Littell J S, McKenzie D, Peterson D L and Westerling A L 2009 Climate and wildfire area burned in western US ecoprovinces, 1916-2003 Ecological Appl. 19 1003-21
27. Lutz J A, van Wagtendonk J W, Thode A E, Miller J D and Franklin J F 2009 Climate, lightning ignitions, and fire severity in Yosemite National Park, California, USA Int. J. Wildland Fire 18 765-74
28. Magnussen S and Taylor S W 2012 Prediction of daily lightning-and human-caused fires in British Columbia Int. J. Wildland Fire 21 342-56
29. McKenzie D, Shankar U, Keane R E, Stavros E N, Heilman W E, Fox D G and Riebau A C 2014 Smoke consequences of new wildfire regimes driven by climate change Earth's Future 2 35-59
30. Miller J D, Skinner C N, Safford H D, Knapp E E and Ramirez C M 2012 Trends and causes of severity, size, and number of fires in northwestern California, USA Ecological Appl. 22 184-203
31. Moritz M A, Parisien M A, Batllori E, Krawchuk M A, Van Dorn J, Ganz D J and Hayhoe K 2012 Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity Ecosphere 3 49
32. Morton D C, Collatz G J, Wang D, Randerson J T, Giglio L and Chen Y 2013 Satellite-based assessment of climate controls on US burned area Biogeosciences 10 247-60
33. Orville R E, Huffines G R, Burrows W R, Holle R L and Cummins K L 2002 The North American Lightning Detection Network (NALDN) - first results: 1998-2000 Mon. Wea. Rev. 130 2098-109
34. Parks S A, Parisien M A, Miller C and Dobrowski S Z 2014 Fire activity and severity in the western US vary along proxy gradients representing fuel amount and fuel moisture PLoS One 9 e99699
35. Pyne S J, Andrews P L and Laven R D 1996 Introduction to Wildland Fire (New York: Wiley) 769 p
36. Reineking B, Weibel P, Conedera M and Bugmann H 2010 Environmental determinants of lightning: V. Human-induced forest fire ignitions differ in a temperate mountain region of Switzerland Int. J. Wildland Fire 19 541-57
37. Romps D M, Seeley J T, Vollaro D and Molinari J 2014 Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming Science 346 851-4
38. Rorig M L and Ferguson S A 1999 Characteristics of lightning and wildland fire ignition in the Pacific Northwest J. Appl. Meteorol. 38 1565-75
39. Rorig M L and Ferguson S A 2002 The 2000 fire season: lightning-caused fires J. Appl. Meteorology 41 789-91
40. Sedano F and Randerson J T 2014 Multi-scale influence of vapor pressure deficit on fire ignition and spread in boreal forest ecosystems Biogeosciences 11 3739-55
41. Short K C 2014 A spatial database of wildfires in the United States, 1992-2011 Earth Syst. Sci. Data 6 1-27
42. Stephens S L 2005 Forest fire causes and extent on United States forest service lands Int. J. Wildland Fire 14 213-22
43. Stocks B J, Mason J A, Todd J B, Bosch E M, Wotton B M, Amiro B D, Flannigan M D and Skinner W R 2002 Large forest fires in Canada, 1959-1997 J. Geophys. Res.: Atmos. 107 8149
44. Urbieta I R, Zavala G, Bedia J, Gutiérrez J M, Miguel-Ayanz J S, Camia A, Keeley J E and Moreno J M 2015 Fire activity as a function of fire-weather seasonal severity and antecedent climate across spatial scales in southern Europe and Pacific western USA Environ. Res. Lett. 10 114013
45. Westerling A L, Gershunov A, Brown T J, Cayan D R and Dettinger M D 2003 Climate and wildfire in the western United States Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84 595-604
46. Whitman E, Batllori E, Parisien M-A, Miller C, Coop J D, Krawchuk M A, Chong G W and Haire S L 2015 The climate space of fire regimes in north-western North America J. Biogeography 42 1736-49
47. Williams A P et al 2013 Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality Nat. Clim. Change 3 292-7
48. Williams A P et al 2015 Correlations between components of the water balance and burned area reveal new insights for predicting forest fire area in the southwest United States Int. J. Wildland Fire 24 14-26
49. Williams A P and Abatzoglou J T 2016 Recent advances and remaining uncertainties in resolving past and future climate effects on global fire activity Current Climate Change Reports
50. van Wagtendonk J W and Cayan D R 2008 Temporal and spatial distribution of lightning strikes in California in relation to large-scale weather patterns Fire Ecology 4 34-57