|
Detailed Reference Information |
Trouet, V., Taylor, A.H., Carleton, A.M. and Skinner, C.N. (2006). Fire-climate interactions in forests of the American Pacific coast. Geophysical Research Letters 33: doi: 10.1029/2006GL027502. issn: 0094-8276. |
|
We investigate relationships between climate and wildfire activity between 1929 and 2004 in Pacific coast forests of the United States. Self-Organizing Mapping (SOM) of annual area burned in National Forests (NF) in California, Oregon, and Washington identifies three contiguous NF groups and a fourth group of NF traversed by major highways. Large fire years in all groups are dry compared to small fire years. A sub-hemispheric circulation pattern of a strong trough over the North Pacific and a ridge over the West Coast is characteristic of large fire years in all groups. This pattern resembles the Pacific North American (PNA) teleconnection and positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). A reverse PNA and negative PDO phase characterizes small fire years. Despite the effect of fire suppression management between 1929 and 2004, forest area burned is linked to climatic variations related to large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. |
|
|
|
BACKGROUND DATA FILES |
|
|
Abstract |
|
|
|
|
|
Keywords
Global Change, Land/atmosphere interactions (1218, 1843, 3322), Global Change, Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513), Biogeosciences, Ecosystems, structure and dynamics, Mathematical Geophysics, Spatial analysis, Mathematical Geophysics, Time series analysis (1872, 4277, 4475) |
|
Publisher
American Geophysical Union 2000 Florida Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009-1277 USA 1-202-462-6900 1-202-328-0566 service@agu.org |
|
|
|