Effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on fire activity in the North American boreal forest: implications for fire weather forecasting

Peterson, David A.; Wang, Jun; Ichoku, Charles; Remer, L. A.

doi:10.5194/acp-10-6873-2010

Cited by 57 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…boreal ecosystems are started by lightning and that the number of fire starts increases with convective activity and the number of strikes (e.g. Peterson et al, 2010), it is frequently assumed that increasing the number of lightning ignitions will lead to an increase in burnt area (e.g. Pfeiffer et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Global controls on month-by-month fractional burnt area (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) were investigated by fitting a generalised linear model (GLM) to Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) data, with 11 predictor variables representing vegetation, climate, land use and potential ignition sources. Burnt area is shown to increase with annual net primary production (NPP), number of dry days, maximum temperature, grazing-land area, grass/shrub cover and diurnal temperature range, and to decrease with soil moisture, cropland area and population density. Lightning showed an apparent (weak) negative influence, but this disappeared when pure seasonal-cycle effects were taken into account. The model predicts observed geographic and seasonal patterns, as well as the emergent relationships seen when burnt area is plotted against each variable separately. Unimodal relationships with mean annual temperature and precipitation, population density and gross domestic product (GDP) are reproduced too, and are thus shown to be secondary consequences of correlations between different controls (e.g. high NPP with high precipitation; low NPP with low population density and GDP). These findings have major implications for the design of global fire models, as several assumptions in current models -most notably, the widely assumed dependence of fire frequency on ignition rates -are evidently incorrect.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Interannual variation in lightning strike density was more faithfully reproduced when weighting the mean flash climatology with the CAPE variable to predict lightning-induced fire ignitions and their variability (Peterson et al, 2010). However, this variation is still constrained by the short temporal depth of the years of record in the CLDN lightning strike data set (Orville et al, 2002;Kochtubajda and Burrows, 2010).…”

Section: Agreements and Disagreements In Fire Activity And Forest Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the strong correlation between lightning strikes and the product of CAPE and precipitation (e.g., Peterson et al, 2010;Romps et al, 2014), we computed daily lightning strike density using CAPE data and distributed the lightning strikes over the daily fraction of monthly rainy days (Pfeiffer et al, 2013). Across Canada and within our study area, July was the month with the maximum number of lightning strikes between 1999 and 2010 ( Fig.…”

Section: Lightningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pyrogeography of eastern boreal Canada from 1901 to 2012 simulated with the LPJ-LMfire model

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The inter-annual variation in lightning strike density was more faithfully reproduced when weighting the mean flash climatology with the CAPE variable to predict lightning-induced fire ignitions and their variability (Peterson et al, 2010).…”

Section: Agreements and Disagreements In Fire Activity And Forest Growthmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Given the strong correlation between lightning strikes and the product of CAPE and precipitation (e.g., Peterson et al, 2010;Romps et al, 2014), we computed daily strike density using CAPE data and distributed the lightning strikes over the daily fraction of monthly rainy days (Pfeiffer et al, 2013). Across Canada and within our study area, July was the month with the maximum number of strikes between 1999 and 2010 (supplement S1 Fig.…”

Section: Lightningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pyrogeography of eastern boreal Canada from 1901 to 2012 simulated with the LPJ-LMfire model

Chaste¹,

Girardin²,

Kaplan³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Wildland fires are the main natural disturbance shaping forest structure and composition in eastern boreal Canada. 15On average, more than 700,000 ha of forest burns annually, and causes as much as C$2.9 million worth of damage. Although we know that occurrence of fires depends upon the coincidence of favourable conditions for fire ignition, propagation and fuel availability, the interplay between these three drivers in shaping spatiotemporal patterns of fires in eastern Canada remains to be evaluated. The goal of this study was to reconstruct the spatiotemporal patterns of fire activity during the last century in eastern Canada's boreal forest as a function of changes in lightning ignition, climate and vegetation. We addressed this 20 objective using the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-LMfire, which we parametrized for four Plant Functional Types (PFTs) that correspond to the prevalent tree genera in eastern boreal Canada (Picea, Abies, Pinus, Populus). LPJ-LMfire was run with a monthly time-step from 1901 to 2012 on a 10-km 2 resolution grid covering the boreal forest from Manitoba to Newfoundland. Outputs of LPJ-LMfire were analyzed in terms of fire frequency, net primary productivity (NPP), and aboveground biomass. The predictive skills of LPJ-LMfire were examined by comparing our simulations of annual burn rates 25 and biomass with independent datasets. The simulation adequately reproduced the latitudinal gradient in fire frequency in Manitoba and the longitudinal gradient from Manitoba towards southern Ontario, as well as the temporal patterns present in independent fire histories. Nevertheless, the simulation led to underestimation and overestimation of the fire frequency at both the northern and southern limits of the boreal forest in Quebec. The general pattern of simulated total tree biomass also agreed well with observations, with the notable exception of overestimated biomass at the northern treeline, mainly for Picea PFT. In 30 these northern areas, the predictive ability of LPJ-LMfire is likely being affected by a low density of weather stations, which has led to underestimation of the strength of fire-weather interactions during extreme fire years and, therefore, vegetation consumption. Agreement of the spatiotemporal patterns of fire frequency with the observed data confirmed that fire in the study area is strongly ignition-limited. Overall, climate and lightning ignition variability at multi-decadal and -annual timeBiogeosciences Discuss., https://doi

show abstract

Effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on fire activity in the North American boreal forest: implications for fire weather forecasting

Cited by 57 publications

References 39 publications

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

The pyrogeography of eastern boreal Canada from 1901 to 2012 simulated with the LPJ-LMfire model

The pyrogeography of eastern boreal Canada from 1901 to 2012 simulated with the LPJ-LMfire model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About