Defining pyromes and global syndromes of fire regimes.

ABSTRACT: Fire is a ubiquitous component of the Earth system that is poorly understood. To date, a global-scale understanding of fire is largely limited to the annual extent of burning as detected by satellites. This is problematic because fire is multidimensional, and focus on a single metric belies its complexity and importance within the Earth system. To address this, we identified five key characteristics of fire regimes--size, frequency, intensity, season, and extent--and combined new and existing global datasets to represent each. We assessed how these global fire regime characteristics are related to patterns of climate, vegetation (biomes), and human activity. Cross-correlations demonstrate that only certain combinations of fire characteristics are possible, reflecting fundamental constraint

SUBMITTER: Archibald S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3631631 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature