Ecosystem responses to recent climate change and fire disturbance at northern high latitudes: observations and model results contrasting northern Eurasia and North America

Vegetation composition at high latitudes plays a critical role in the climate and, in turn, is strongly affected by the climate. The increased frequency of fires expected as a result of climate warming at high latitudes will feedback positively to further warming by releasing carbon to the atmosphere, but will also feedback negatively by increasing the surface albedo. The net effect is complex because the severity of fire affects the trajectory of both carbon stocks and albedo change following a fire, and these are likely to differ between high latitude ecosystems in North America and northern Eurasia. Here we use growth trajectories, productivity trends and regional carbon fluxes to characterize these fire- and climate-driven changes.

[1]  S. Goetz,et al.  Remote sensing of net primary production in boreal forest stands , 1996 .

[2]  J. E N N I F E,et al.  Effects of wildfire and permafrost on soil organic matter and soil climate in interior Alaska , 2006 .

[3]  Shamil Maksyutov,et al.  TransCom 3 CO2 inversion intercomparison: 1. Annual mean control results and sensitivity to transport and prior flux information , 2003 .

[4]  Christopher B. Field,et al.  Increases in early season ecosystem uptake explain recent changes in the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 at high northern latitudes , 1999 .

[5]  C. T. Dyrness,et al.  Fire in Taiga Communities of Interior Alaska , 1986 .

[6]  J. Hansen,et al.  Global temperature change , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[7]  C. Tucker,et al.  Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999 , 2003, Science.

[8]  P. Freer-Smith,et al.  Fire, Climate Change and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest , 2001 .

[9]  Jonathan M. Graham,et al.  Analysis of Alaskan burn severity patterns using remotely sensed data , 2007 .

[10]  Christopher B. Field,et al.  Postfire response of North American boreal forest net primary productivity analyzed with satellite observations , 2003 .

[11]  C. Bretherton,et al.  The Effective Number of Spatial Degrees of Freedom of a Time-Varying Field , 1999 .

[12]  Jing Chen,et al.  Net primary productivity following forest fire for Canadian ecoregions , 2000 .

[13]  K. Wolter,et al.  Measuring the strength of ENSO events: How does 1997/98 rank? , 1998 .

[14]  Christiane Schmullius,et al.  Impact of the Arctic Oscillation pattern on interannual forest fire variability in Central Siberia , 2005 .

[15]  Leslie A. Viereck,et al.  Decadal observations of tree regeneration following fire in boreal forests , 2004 .

[16]  E. Johnson,et al.  A Critical Evaluation of Fire Suppression Effects in the Boreal Forest of Ontario , 2005, Forest Science.

[17]  M. Sturm,et al.  Climate change: Increasing shrub abundance in the Arctic , 2001, Nature.

[18]  J. Randerson,et al.  The Impact of Boreal Forest Fire on Climate Warming , 2006, Science.

[19]  Alan G. Barr,et al.  The effect of post-fire stand age on the boreal forest energy balance , 2006 .

[20]  G. Liston,et al.  Changing snow and shrub conditions affect albedo with global implications , 2005 .

[21]  John E. Walsh,et al.  IMPACTS OF LARGE‐SCALE ATMOSPHERIC–OCEAN VARIABILITY ON ALASKAN FIRE SEASON SEVERITY , 2005 .

[22]  F. Chapin,et al.  Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming , 2005, Science.

[23]  Heiko Balzter,et al.  Coupling of Vegetation Growing Season Anomalies and Fire Activity with Hemispheric and Regional-Scale Climate Patterns in Central and East Siberia , 2007 .

[24]  A. M. Starfield,et al.  Modeling the Impact of Black Spruce on the Fire Regime of Alaskan Boreal Forest , 2002 .

[25]  C. Larsen.  Spatial and temporal variations in boreal forest fire frequency in northern Alberta , 1997 .

[26]  E. Kasischke,et al.  Recent changes in the fire regime across the North American boreal region—Spatial and temporal patterns of burning across Canada and Alaska , 2006 .

[27]  Scott J. Goetz.  Recent advances in remote sensing of biophysical variables , 2002 .

[28]  Eric S. Kasischke,et al.  Fire, Climate Change, and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest , 2000, Ecological Studies.

[29]  C. Tucker,et al.  Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991 , 1997, Nature.

[30]  K. Hirsch,et al.  Large forest fires in Canada, 1959–1997 , 2002 .

[31]  Scott J. Goetz,et al.  Using satellite time-series data sets to analyze fire disturbance and forest recovery across Canada , 2006 .

[32]  Kevin R. Gurney,et al.  TransCom 3 inversion intercomparison: Impact of transport model errors on the interannual variability of regional CO2 fluxes, 1988–2003 , 2006 .

[33]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[34]  C. Potter,et al.  Interannual covariability in Northern Hemisphere air temperatures and greenness associated with El Niño‐Southern Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation , 2003 .

[35]  P. P. Tans,et al.  Changes in oceanic and terrestrial carbon uptake since 1982 , 1995, Nature.

[36]  Paul W. Stackhouse,et al.  Climate-induced boreal forest change: Predictions versus current observations , 2007 .

[37]  J. Randerson,et al.  Interannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004 , 2006 .

[38]  A. Scott Denning,et al.  Effect of climate on interannual variability of terrestrial CO2 fluxes , 2002 .

[39]  F. Chapin,et al.  Production: Biomass Relationships and Element Cycling in Contrasting Arctic Vegetation Types , 1991 .

[40]  E. Kasischke,et al.  Variation in postfire organic layer thickness in a black spruce forest complex in interior Alaska and its effects on soil temperature and moisture , 2005 .

[41]  M. Sturm,et al.  The evidence for shrub expansion in Northern Alaska and the Pan‐Arctic , 2006 .

[42]  S. Goetz,et al.  Northern high‐latitude ecosystems respond to climate change , 2007 .

[43]  Ruth S. DeFries,et al.  Estimation of tree cover using MODIS data at global, continental and regional/local scales , 2005 .

[44]  M. Steinbach,et al.  Global teleconnections of climate to terrestrial carbon flux , 2003 .

[45]  J. Randerson,et al.  Recovery of Aboveground Plant Biomass and Productivity After Fire in Mesic and Dry Black Spruce Forests of Interior Alaska , 2008, Ecosystems.

[46]  Andrew G. Bunn,et al.  Responses of the circumpolar boreal forest to 20th century climate variability , 2007 .

[47]  J. Randerson,et al.  The sensitivity of carbon fluxes to spring warming and summer drought depends on plant functional type in boreal forest ecosystems , 2007 .

[48]  S. Goetz,et al.  Satellite-observed photosynthetic trends across boreal North America associated with climate and fire disturbance. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[49]  Scott J. Goetz,et al.  Trends in Satellite-Observed Circumpolar Photosynthetic Activity from 1982 to 2003: The Influence of Seasonality, Cover Type, and Vegetation Density , 2006 .

[50]  Roger Dargaville,et al.  Estimates of Large-Scale Fluxes in High Latitudes from Terrestrial Biosphere Models and an Inversion of Atmospheric CO2 Measurements , 2002 .

[51]  Leslie A. Viereck,et al.  Forest Ecosystem Distribution in the Taiga Environment , 1986 .

[52]  Ke Zhang,et al.  Sensitivity of pan-Arctic terrestrial net primary productivity simulations to daily surface meteorology from NCEP-NCAR and ERA-40 reanalyses , 2007 .

[53]  E. Kasischke,et al.  Stand-level effects of soil burn severity on postfire regeneration in a recently burned black spruce forest , 2005 .

[54]  E. Johnson,et al.  Wildfire Regime in the Boreal Forest and the Idea of Suppression and Fuel Buildup , 2001 .

[55]  S. Gower,et al.  Larches: Deciduous Conifers in an Evergreen World , 1990 .

[56]  F. Chapin,et al.  Evidence and Implications of Recent Climate Change in Northern Alaska and Other Arctic Regions , 2004 .

[57]  Chris D. Jones,et al.  The Carbon Cycle Response to ENSO: A Coupled Climate–Carbon Cycle Model Study , 2001 .

[58]  Shamil Maksyutov,et al.  Map-based inventory of wetland biomass and net primary production in western Siberia , 2008 .

[59]  Taro Takahashi,et al.  Towards robust regional estimates of CO2 sources and sinks using atmospheric transport models , 2002, Nature.

[60]  A. Shvidenko,et al.  The role of historical fire disturbance in the carbon dynamics of the pan-boreal region: A process-based analysis , 2006 .

[61]  Richard A. Werner,et al.  Spruce beetles and forest ecosystems in south-central alaska : A review of 30 years of research , 2006 .

[62]  M. Flannigan,et al.  Future Area Burned in Canada , 2005 .

[63]  M. Wahlen,et al.  Interannual extremes in the rate of rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1980 , 1995, Nature.

[64]  A. Lloyd,et al.  Population dynamics of black spruce and white spruce near the arctic tree line in the southern Brooks Range, Alaska , 2005 .

[65]  Steven F. Oberbauer,et al.  Plant community responses to experimental warming across the tundra biome , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.