AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Changing fire regimes in the North Atlantic boreal regions

Fires in boreal forests and peatlands significantly affect tree recruitment and vegetation recovery, postfire soil temperature and respiration, and long-term accumulation of carbon. To explore fire regime characteristics at ecozone scales across the entire North American boreal region (NABR), Kasischke and Turetsky (2006) examined Canadian and Alaskan historic records from 1959 to 1999 and found that between the 1960–1970s and the 1980–1990s, fire regimes were characterized by a doubling of annual burned area and a more than doubling of the frequency of larger fire years. Western ecozones experienced greater increases in larger fire years compared with eastern ecozones. These findings were consistent with climate-warming trends in Canada, which the authors feel resulted in more frequent summer droughts. Though the proportion of total burned area from human-ignited fires decreased over the studied time period, burning during the early and late growing seasons increased, causing the authors to suspect that fire seasons may be expanding. Moreover, the authors expect that future changes in climate will continue to influence the NABR fire regime.

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