Authors
GC Hurtt, DC Morton, JP Fisk, AM Thomson, LP Chini, P Patel
Publication date
2012/12
Journal
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
Volume
2012
Pages
B41B-0264
Description
Vegetation fires are an essential component of the Earth system, as a natural phenomenon maintaining heterogeneous and biodiverse landscapes, and as a widespread tool for landuse activities (eg deforestation, pasture maintenance). Fires play a key role in ecosystem dynamics and the carbon cycle, relevant from local to global scales, and are expected to be affected by changes in the climate and human systems. Yet accounting for fires in Earth system models is limited, providing little insights into future fire impacts and whether they could be mitigated. Here we identify 3 fundamental requirements for advanced fire modeling: 1/a good understanding of fire drivers (eg climate, human activities, vegetation structure); 2/a proper representation of their impacts through time and across vegetation characteristics (eg partial and size-dependent mortality, fate of dead material); and 3/a modeling framework that can …
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