The DOI matches its Crossref record; 15 of the 15 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Direct and indirect climate controls predict heterogeneous early-mid 21st century wildfire burned area across western and boreal North America
Open accessAbstract
Predicting wildfire under future conditions is complicated by complex interrelated drivers operating across large spatial scales. Annual area burned (AAB) is a useful index of global wildfire activity. Current and antecedent seasonal climatic conditions, and the timing of snowpack melt, have been suggested as important drivers of AAB. As climate warms, seasonal climate and snowpack co-vary in intricate ways, influencing fire at continental and sub-continental scales. We used independent records of seasonal climate and snow cover duration (last date of permanent snowpack, LDPS) and cell-based Structural Equation Models (SEM) to separate direct (climatic) and indirect (snow cover) effects on relative changes in AAB under future climatic scenarios across western and boreal North America. To isolate seasonal climate variables with the greatest effect on AAB, we ran multiple regression models of log-transformed AAB on seasonal climate variables and LDPS. We used the results of multiple regressions to project future AAB using GCM ensemble climate variables and LDPS, and validated model predictions with recent AAB trends. Direct influences of spring and winter temperatures on AAB are larger and more widespread than the indirect effect mediated by changes in LDPS in most areas. Despite significant warming trends and reductions in snow cover duration, projected responses of AAB to early-mid 21st century are heterogeneous across the continent. Changes in AAB range from strongly increasing (one order of magnitude increases in AAB) to moderately decreasing (more than halving of baseline AAB). Annual wildfire area burned in coming decades is likely to be highly geographically heterogeneous, reflecting interacting regional and seasonal climate drivers of fire occurrence and spread.
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Citations
Cites
Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity.
Westerling, A. L., Hidalgo, H. G., Cayan, D. R., & Swetnam, T. W. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1128834 · Cited by 5,176 · cited 5×
“Consistent with literature linking temperature to fire activity [22], [26], [27], [60] our analyses suggest that warm season (summer and spring) temperature is the dominant influence of AAB over large portions of the sub-continent across nearly all of forested Canada and the interior northwestern US (Figs 3 and 4).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialSelf-citationImpact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests
Abatzoglou, J. T., & Williams, A. P. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1607171113 · Cited by 3,073
Structural Equation Modeling and Natural Systems
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Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013
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Self-citationWidespread increase of tree mortality rates in the western United States
van Mantgem, P. J., Stephenson, N. L., Byrne, J. C., Daniels, L. D., Franklin, J. F., Fulé, P. Z., Harmon, M. E., Larson, A. J., Smith, J. M., Taylor, A. H., et al. (2009) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1165000 · Cited by 1,799 · cited 1×
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BackgroundInterannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004
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Global Pyrogeography: the Current and Future Distribution of Wildfire
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Fire-Southern Oscillation Relations in the Southwestern United States
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Self-citationProjected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming
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Cited by
Global and Regional Trends and Drivers of Fire Under Climate Change
Jones, M. W., Abatzoglou, J. T., Veraverbeke, S., Andela, N., Lasslop, G., Forkel, M., Smith, A. J. P., Burton, C., Betts, R. A., van der Werf, G. R., et al. (2022) · Reviews of Geophysics · doi:10.1029/2020rg000726 · Cited by 1,332
Weiskopf, S. R., Rubenstein, M. A., Crozier, L. G., Gaichas, S., Griffis, R., Halofsky, J. E., Hyde, K. J. W., Morelli, T. L., Morisette, J. T., Muñoz, R. C., et al. (2020) · Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137782 · Cited by 1,262
Halofsky, J. E., Peterson, D. L., & Harvey, B. J. (2020) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.1186/s42408-019-0062-8 · Cited by 640
Collins, L., Bradstock, R. A., Clarke, H., Clarke, M. F., Nolan, R. H., & Penman, T. D. (2021) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abeb9e · Cited by 339
Economic footprint of California wildfires in 2018
Wang, D., Guan, D., Zhu, S., Kinnon, M. M., Geng, G., Zhang, Q., Zheng, H., Lei, T., Shao, S., Gong, P., et al. (2020) · Nature Sustainability · doi:10.1038/s41893-020-00646-7 · Cited by 336
Metadata
- Authors
- Kitzberger, T., Falk, D. A., Westerling, A. L., & Swetnam, T. W.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2017-12-15
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- e0188486
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2771755426
- Cited by
- 175
- References
- 15
- FWCI
- 11.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
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