French, Nancy: Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) (Project Lead)
Jenkins, Liza: Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) (Participant)
Project Funding:
2004 - 2008
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
Increasing atmospheric carbon is a topic of current interest because of concerns about the impact of elevated greenhouse gases on global temperature. A project headed by Dr. Nancy French addresses the emissions of carbon-based greenhouse gases from wildland fires. Based on results of previous research, it has been hypothesized that the variability in the amount of biomass consumed during vegetation fires is the main driver of uncertainty in the emission of carbon-based greenhouse gases from wildland fires in temperate and boreal forest regions. For this NASA-funded Earth System Science research project, biomass consumption levels in forested regions of northern and western North America will be quantified with a goal of learning how variable consumption can be within a given ecoregion. Remote sensing will be used to sample fire-disturbed sites at broad spatial scales so that the full range of fire’s impact can be assessed. The goal of the project is to sample a statistically meaningful number of sites using satellite-based measurements so that consumption can be described for each forested ecoregion. This will result in a more complete view of the amount of biomass consumed during burning so that estimates of carbon emissions can be better quantified.
Publications:
Citations listed are contained in a special issue of the International Journal of Wildland Fire on 'Remote Sensing of Burn Severity in Boreal North America' Edited by NHF French and ES Kasischke (Volume 17, Issue 4, 2008).
Allen, J. L., Sorbel, B. 2008. Assessing the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio's ability to map burn severity in the boreal forest and tundra ecosystems of Alaska's national parks. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 463. DOI: 10.1071/WF08034
French, N. H. F., Kasischke, E. S., Hall, R. J., Murphy, K. A., Verbyla, D. L., Hoy, E. E., Allen, J. L. 2008. Using Landsat data to assess fire and burn severity in the North American boreal forest region: an overview and summary of results. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 443. DOI: 10.1071/WF08007
Hall, R. J., Freeburn, J. T., de Groot, W. J., Pritchard, J. M., Lynham, T. J., Landry, R. 2008. Remote sensing of burn severity: experience from western Canada boreal fires. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 476. DOI: 10.1071/WF08013
Hoy, E. E., French, N. H. F., Turetsky, M. R., Trigg, S. N., Kasischke, E. S. 2008. Evaluating the potential of Landsat TM/ETM+ imagery for assessing fire severity in Alaskan black spruce forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 500. DOI: 10.1071/WF08107
Kasischke, E. S., Turetsky, M. R., Ottmar, R. D., French, N. H. F., Hoy, E. E., Kane, E. S. 2008. Evaluation of the composite burn index for assessing fire severity in Alaskan black spruce forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 515. DOI: 10.1071/WF08002
Murphy, K. A., Reynolds, J. H., Koltun, J. M. 2008. Evaluating the ability of the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) to predict ecologically significant burn severity in Alaskan boreal forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 490. DOI: 10.1071/WF08050
Verbyla, D. L., Kasischke, E. S., Hoy, E. E. 2008. Seasonal and topographic effects on estimating fire severity from Landsat TM/ETM+ data. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(4), 527. DOI: 10.1071/WF08038
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
