Rogers, Brendan: Woodwell Climate Research Center (Project Lead)
Goetz, Scott: Northern Arizona University (Co-Investigator)
Turetsky, Merritt: University Of Colorado, Boulder (Co-Investigator)
Veraverbeke, Sander: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Co-Investigator)
Andersen, Hans: U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station (Collaborator)
Barnes, Jennifer: National Park Service (Collaborator)
Dunne, John: NOAA (Collaborator)
Flannigan, Mike: University of Alberta (Collaborator)
Frumhoff, Peter: Union of Concerned Scientists (Collaborator)
Gelhorn, Lane: Government of Saskatchewan (Collaborator)
Johnson, Kristopher: Yukon Government Wildland Fire Management (Collaborator)
Johnstone, Jill: University of Saskatchewan (Collaborator)
Phillips, Carly: Union of Concerned Scientists (Collaborator)
Potapov, Peter: University of Maryland (Collaborator)
Randerson, James (Jim): University Of California, Irvine (Collaborator)
Robertson, Amanda: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Collaborator)
Saperstein, Lisa: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Collaborator)
Schaaf, Crystal: University of Massachusetts Boston (Collaborator)
Smith, Michael: Yukon Government Wildland Fire Management (Collaborator)
Ward, Daniel: Princeton University (Collaborator)
Laflamme, Jocelyne: University of Guelph (Participant)
Potter, Stefano: Woodwell Climate Research Center (Participant)
Savage, Kathleen: Woodwell Climate Research Center (Participant)
Solvik, Kylen: University of Colorado (Participant)
Birch, Leah: Woodwell Climate Research Center (Post-Doc)
Dieleman, Catherine: University of Guelph (Post-Doc)
Elmes, Arthur: University of Massachusetts Boston (Post-Doc)
Erb, Angela: University of Massachusetts Boston (Student-Graduate)
Laflamme, Jocelyne: University of Guelph (Student-Undergraduate)
Moubarak, Michael: Hamilton College (Student-Undergraduate)
Project Funding:
2015 - 2020
NRA: 2014 NASA: Terrestrial Ecology
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
Our project involves an investigation into the net radiative forcings from forest fires in the ABoVE domain. Fire is the dominant disturbance in boreal North America and regulates ecosystem composition and land-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water, and energy. Multiple lines of evidence point to an intensification of the fire regime due to climate change; these disturbances, in turn, influence climate through multiple and often counteracting pathways. For example, fires that combust large amounts of organic matter and deposit black carbon on ice and snow will warm the climate, whereas fires that dramatically increase spring albedo by exposing more underlying snow can lead to cooling.
Unlike other large Earth system feedbacks, we have some direct level of control over fire regimes. Federal and state/provincial agencies in Alaska and Canada invest considerable resources into controlling fires for multiple purposes. The warming or cooling potential from fires, however, is currently not taken into account. We believe this represents an untapped climate mitigation service from boreal forests. Although agencies are interested, the information needed to exploit this ecosystem service does not exist. The value of this information should increase in time as carbon and climate forcings become monetized and more tightly regulated.
Our primary science goal is to develop maps of fire forcings across the ABoVE domain during the 2002 - 2011 era. To do so we will employ existing and new remote sensing data sets to quantify carbon consumption by wildfire and long-term changes to albedo, nominally at MODIS 500m resolution. New field measurements of combustion from under-sampled regions and forest types in the fire-prone forests of Saskatchewan will add constraints to our statistical combustion model, an extension of the Alaskan Fire Emissions Database (AKFED). Post-fire albedo trajectories will be derived for separate land cover types and burn severities. We will employ a dynamic vegetation model to estimate post-fire biomass regrowth. Forcings will be calculated using established radiative kernels, estimated current and future global carbon sinks, and greenhouse gas forcing algorithms. We will also employ a coupled Earth system model to characterize forcings from carbonaceous aerosols as affected by the location and timing of burn, including their subsequent deposition onto snow and ice.
We will then build statistical models to predict fire-climate forcings before and during the fire season, and explore integrating these into fire management frameworks. To do so we are working with fire managers and scientists from various government agencies in Alaska and Canada.
Publications:
Archibald, S., Lehmann, C. E. R., Belcher, C. M., Bond, W. J., Bradstock, R. A., Daniau, A., Dexter, K. G., Forrestel, E. J., Greve, M., He, T., Higgins, S. I., Hoffmann, W. A., Lamont, B. B., McGlinn, D. J., Moncrieff, G. R., Osborne, C. P., Pausas, J. G., Price, O., Ripley, B. S., Rogers, B. M., Schwilk, D. W., Simon, M. F., Turetsky, M. R., Van der Werf, G. R., Zanne, A. E. 2018. Biological and geophysical feedbacks with fire in the Earth system. Environmental Research Letters. 13(3), 033003. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ead
Baltzer, J. L., Day, N. J., Walker, X. J., Greene, D., Mack, M. C., Alexander, H. D., Arseneault, D., Barnes, J., Bergeron, Y., Boucher, Y., Bourgeau-Chavez, L., Brown, C. D., Carriere, S., Howard, B. K., Gauthier, S., Parisien, M., Reid, K. A., Rogers, B. M., Roland, C., Sirois, L., Stehn, S., Thompson, D. K., Turetsky, M. R., Veraverbeke, S., Whitman, E., Yang, J., Johnstone, J. F. 2021. Increasing fire and the decline of fire adapted black spruce in the boreal forest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118(45). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2024872118
Dieleman, C. M., Rogers, B. M., Potter, S., Veraverbeke, S., Johnstone, J. F., Laflamme, J., Solvik, K., Walker, X. J., Mack, M. C., Turetsky, M. R. 2020. Wildfire combustion and carbon stocks in the southern Canadian boreal forest: Implications for a warming world. Global Change Biology. 26(11), 6062-6079. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15158
Elder, M., Phillips, C. A., Potter, S., Frumhoff, P. C., Rogers, B. M. 2022. The costs and benefits of fire management for carbon mitigation in Alaska through 2100. Environmental Research Letters. 17(10), 105001. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8e85
Hessilt, T. D., Rogers, B. M., Scholten, R. C., Potter, S., Janssen, T. A. J., Veraverbeke, S. 2024. Geographically divergent trends in snow disappearance timing and fire ignitions across boreal North America. Biogeosciences. 21(1), 109-129. DOI: 10.5194/bg-21-109-2024
Jandt, R. R.: Future Fire Regime in Alaska: a Look at the Role of Lightning, Alaska Fire Science Consortium, AFSC Research Brief 2017-2, 2017
Jandt, R., Rogers, B., and Philips, C.: Fire management is one way to reduce CO2 emissions - how much would that cost, AFSC Research Brief, 2022.
McLauchlan, K. K., Higuera, P. E., Miesel, J., Rogers, B. M., Schweitzer, J., Shuman, J. K., Tepley, A. J., Varner, J. M., Veblen, T. T., Adalsteinsson, S. A., Balch, J. K., Baker, P., Batllori, E., Bigio, E., Brando, P., Cattau, M., Chipman, M. L., Coen, J., Crandall, R., Daniels, L., Enright, N., Gross, W. S., Harvey, B. J., Hatten, J. A., Hermann, S., Hewitt, R. E., Kobziar, L. N., Landesmann, J. B., Loranty, M. M., Maezumi, S. Y., Mearns, L., Moritz, M., Myers, J. A., Pausas, J. G., Pellegrini, A. F. A., Platt, W. J., Roozeboom, J., Safford, H., Santos, F., Scheller, R. M., Sherriff, R. L., Smith, K. G., Smith, M. D., Watts, A. C. 2020. Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers. Journal of Ecology. 108(5), 2047-2069. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13403
Moubarak, M., Sistla, S., Potter, S., Natali, S. M., Rogers, B. M. 2023. Carbon emissions and radiative forcings from tundra wildfires in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, Alaska. Biogeosciences. 20(8), 1537-1557. DOI: 10.5194/bg-20-1537-2023
Phillips, C. A., Rogers, B. M., Elder, M., Cooperdock, S., Moubarak, M., Randerson, J. T., Frumhoff, P. C. 2022. Escalating carbon emissions from North American boreal forest wildfires and the climate mitigation potential of fire management. Science Advances. 8(17). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abl7161
Potter, S., Cooperdock, S., Veraverbeke, S., Walker, X., Mack, M. C., Goetz, S. J., Baltzer, J., Bourgeau-Chavez, L., Burrell, A., Dieleman, C., French, N., Hantson, S., Hoy, E. E., Jenkins, L., Johnstone, J. F., Kane, E. S., Natali, S. M., Randerson, J. T., Turetsky, M. R., Whitman, E., Wiggins, E., Rogers, B. M. 2023. Burned area and carbon emissions across northwestern boreal North America from 2001-2019. Biogeosciences. 20(13), 2785-2804. DOI: 10.5194/bg-20-2785-2023
Potter, S., Solvik, K., Erb, A., Goetz, S. J., Johnstone, J. F., Mack, M. C., Randerson, J. T., Roman, M. O., Schaaf, C. L., Turetsky, M. R., Veraverbeke, S., Walker, X. J., Wang, Z., Massey, R., Rogers, B. M. 2019. Climate change decreases the cooling effect from postfire albedo in boreal North America. Global Change Biology. 26(3), 1592-1607. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14888
Rogers, B. M., Balch, J. K., Goetz, S. J., Lehmann, C. E. R., Turetsky, M. 2020. Focus on changing fire regimes: interactions with climate, ecosystems, and society. Environmental Research Letters. 15(3), 030201. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab6d3a
Scholten, R. C., Jandt, R., Miller, E. A., Rogers, B. M., Veraverbeke, S. 2021. Overwintering fires in boreal forests. Nature. 593(7859), 399-404. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03437-y
van Wees, D., van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Rogers, B. M., Chen, Y., Veraverbeke, S., Giglio, L., Morton, D. C. 2022. Global biomass burning fuel consumption and emissions at 500 m spatial resolution based on the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED). Geoscientific Model Development. 15(22), 8411-8437. DOI: 10.5194/gmd-15-8411-2022
Veraverbeke, S., Delcourt, C. J., Kukavskaya, E., Mack, M., Walker, X., Hessilt, T., Rogers, B., Scholten, R. C. 2021. Direct and longer-term carbon emissions from arctic-boreal fires: A short review of recent advances. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health. 23, 100277. DOI: 10.1016/j.coesh.2021.100277
Veraverbeke, S., Rogers, B. M., Goulden, M. L., Jandt, R. R., Miller, C. E., Wiggins, E. B., Randerson, J. T. 2017. Lightning as a major driver of recent large fire years in North American boreal forests. Nature Climate Change. 7(7), 529-534. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate3329
Walker X J, Baltzer J L, Bourgeau-Chavez L, Day N J, Dieleman C M, Johnstone J F, Kane E S, Rogers B M, Turetsky M R, Veraverbeke S, Mack M C. 2020 Patterns of Ecosystem Structure and Wildfire Carbon Combustion Across Six Ecoregions of the North American Boreal Forest. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 3. DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2020.00087
Walker X J, Rogers B M, Veraverbeke S, Johnstone J F, Baltzer J L, Barrett K, Bourgeau-Chavez L, Day N J, de Groot W J, Dieleman C M, Goetz S, Hoy E, Jenkins L K, Kane E S, Parisien M, Potter S, Schuur E A G, Turetsky M, Whitman E, Mack M C. 2020 Fuel availability not fire weather controls boreal wildfire severity and carbon emissions. Nature Climate Change. 10(12), 1130-1136. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-00920-8
Veraverbeke, S., Rogers, B. M., Randerson, J. T. 2015. Daily burned area and carbon emissions from boreal fires in Alaska. Biogeosciences. 12(11), 3579-3601. DOI: 10.5194/bg-12-3579-2015
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):