Climate Controls of Fire in the Western United States: From the Atmosphere to Ecosystems.(Final Report, JFSP-01-1-6-05)

摘要

We believe a better understanding of climate-fire relations would provide a context for fully informed forecasts of fire weather. Our research therefore focused on decomposing and quantifying the hierarchy of climatic controls that influence surface climate conditions prior to and during the fire season in the western United States. To achieve our goal, we employed an approach in which we examined jointly 1) observational (and simulated, or reanalysis) records of climate and 2) historical records of fire using data-analytical procedures employed in climate-diagnostic studies and a hierarchy of appropriate regional climate and vegetation models.