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The Arctic is warming faster than any other area of the world and its boreal forests have experienced dramatic increases in the size and frequency of fires. The fast pace of these changes has prompted concern because boreal forests make up about a third of all forests worldwide, contain almost half of the world's stored carbon, and have been historically stable with black spruce dominating this landscape for the past 6,000 years. Warming of 2-8 °C is projected by the end of the century and the emergence of a new fire regime threatens to disrupt this forest ecosystem.
We will incorporate field studies and model simulations to determine how fire frequency and climate change affect shifts between vegetation types (e.g. switch from conifer to hardwoods) and long term carbon storage in this vast and under-studied region.
Funding: NSF Arctic
People: Robert Scheller, Melissa Lucash (PI: Portland State), Brian Buma (University of Colorado), Tim Link (University of Idaho), Vladimir Romanovsky (University of Alaska), Jason Vogel (University of Florida)