The Changing Strength and Nature of Fire-Climate Relationships in the Northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008.

ABSTRACT: Time-varying fire-climate relationships may represent an important component of fire-regime variability, relevant for understanding the controls of fire and projecting fire activity under global-change scenarios. We used time-varying statistical models to evaluate if and how fire-climate relationships varied from 1902-2008, in one of the most flammable forested regions of the western U.S.A. Fire-danger and water-balance metrics yielded the best combination of calibration accuracy and predictive skill in modeling annual area burned. The strength of fire-climate relationships varied markedly at multi-decadal scales, with models explaining < 40% to 88% of the variation in annual area burned. The early 20th century (1902-1942) and the most recent two decades (1985-2008) exhibited strong fire-c

SUBMITTER: Higuera PE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4482589 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature