We present the energy and mass balance of cerrado sensu stricto (a Brazilian form of savanna), in which a mixture of shrubs, trees and grasses forms a vegetation with a leaf area index of 1-0 in the wet season and 0-4 in the dry season. In the wet season the available energy was equally dissipated between sensible heat and evaporation, but in the dry season at high irradiance the sensible heat greatly exceeded evaporation. Ecosystem surface conductance gî n the wet season rose abruptly to 0-3 mol m"^ s"^ and fell gradually as the day progressed. Much of the total variation in gs was associated with variation in the leaf-to-air vapour pressure deficit of water and the solar irradiance. In the dry season the maximal g^ values were only 0-1 mol m"^ s~\ Maximal net ecosystem fluxes of CO2 in the wet and dry season were -10 and -15 /Jmol CO2 m'^ s~', respectively (sign convention: negative denotes fluxes from atmosphere to vegetation). The canopy was well coupled to the atmosphere, and there was rarely a significant build-up of respiratory CO2 during the night. For observations in the wet season, the vegetation was a carbon dioxide sink, of maximal strength 0*15 mol m"^ d~\ However, it was a source of carbon dioxide for a brief period at the height of the dry season. Leaf carbon isotopic composition showed all the grasses except for one species to be C4, and all the palms and woody plants to be C3. The CO2 coming from the soil had an isotopic composition that suggested 40% of it was of C4 origin.

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Fire is an ecosystem property rather than an exogenous force in southern California chaparral, and it interacts with processes of drought—mediated canopy development, production, and mortality to affect stability of community composition. Where species that must reproduce from seed, such as Ceanothus crassifolius or Ceanothus oliganthus, are predominant, composition can be altered by a single fire with little or no recruitment after initial postfire establishment. Water balance apparently regulates subsequent leaf area development; after 15—22 yr of postfire growth, foliage biomass in monospecific C. crassifolius stands in this study had approached a maximum that was unrelated to incident solar radiation and insensitive to initial population density over a 10—fold range. Thus, establishment success, above that required for canopy closure, should have little effect on the foliage biomass that sustains combustion. After canopy closure, total biomass accumulated at an accelerating rate through at least two decades with aboveground net primary production as great as 12—13 Mg · ha—1 · yr—1. C. crassifolius mortality was substantially less than predicted from growth rates and the —3/2 power model of Yoda et al. (1963), and there was no approach to a common asymptotic density by stands of disparate initial density. With low deadwood biomass and absence of ground fuels, c. crassifolius cannot sustain burning in the absence of wind, steep slopes, or exceptionally low live—fuel moisture. Increased Ceanothus abundance in multispecies communities with Adenostoma fasciculatum or Salvia mellifera alters biomass structure and could modify subsequent fire effects even if foliage area fully redevelops in concert with site water balance. Rare, low—intensity fires can devastate Ceanothus chaparral, that reproduces only from seed. Salvia mellifera and Eriogonum fasciculatum can occupy resulting openings in the canopy, and their abundant deadwood and compact biomass can readily spread low—intensity fires, thereby perpetuating the degraded community. Productive stands within a chaparral association are probably subject to especially severe fires that limit nutrient accumulation and may also limit subsequent productivity. Copious nitrogen volatilization during burning is promoted by high nitrogen concentrations in foliage and fine woody biomass of Ceanothus and heavy leaf litter of Quercus dumosa and C. crassifolius. The communities most prone to severe fires also accumulate and cycle nitrogen and phosphorus rapidly.

Temperature, intensity, spread, and dimensions of fires burning in tropical savanna and slashed tropical forest in central Brazil were measured for the first time by remote sensing with an infrared imaging spectrometer that was designed to accommodate the high radiances of wildland fires. Furthermore, the first in situ airborne measurements of sensible heat and carbon fluxes in fire plumes were combined with remote measurements of flame properties to provide consistent remote-sensing-based estimators of these fluxes. These estimators provide a means to determine rates of fuel consumption and carbon emission to the atmosphere by wildland fires as required for assessments of fire impacts on regional air pollution or global emissions of greenhouse gases. Observed fires developed complex fire-line geometry and thermal structure, even as average whole-fire temperatures varied little. Flame temperatures sometimes exceeded 1600 K along the leading edge of actively spreading fire lines, yet Ͼ90% of the radiant energy from observed fires was associated with temperatures of 830-1440 K. Fire in a partially slashed forest encompassed a high-intensity flaming front and a trailing reach of residual combustion extending 400 m. Fire fronts in tropical savanna typically formed with little depth and a high proportion of their radiant flux density associated with high temperatures due to low levels of residual combustion. Measured fires had such low and variable radiance compared with that of a blackbody of comparable temperature as to preclude the use of fire radiance at a single wavelength as a measure of fire intensity or temperature. One-half of the radiant flux density from a measured savanna fire was associated with values of a combined emissivity-fractional-area parameter Ͻ0.091 m 2 /m 2 ; for a slash fire this fraction was associated with values Ͻ0.37 m 2 /m 2 . Observations reported here show wildland fires to be so complex and dynamic as to require frequent high-resolution measurements over their course and duration in order to specify their effects in the environment; an understanding of global fire impacts may require such measurements over a large sample of individual fires.