Fire Regime Impacts on Postfire Diurnal Land Surface Temperature Change Over North American Boreal Forest
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2021, 126, (23)
- Issue Date:
- 2021-12-16
Closed Access
| Filename | Description | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JGR Atmospheres - 2021 - Zhao - Fire Regime Impacts on Postfire Diurnal Land Surface Temperature Change Over North American.pdf | Accepted version | 1.95 MB |
Copyright Clearance Process
- Recently Added
- In Progress
- Closed Access
This item is closed access and not available.
Wildfire is the most prevalent natural disturbance in the North American boreal forest (NABF) and can cause postfire land surface temperature change (ΔTfire) through biophysical processes. Fire regimes, such as fire severity, fire intensity, and percentage of burned area (PBA), may influence ΔTfire through their impacts on postfire vegetation damage and, if so, there may be important feedbacks between fire regime and climate warming through biophysical effects. Here, we employ satellite observations to investigate postfire diurnal ΔTfire across NABF. We further use a stepwise multiple linear regression model to examine the driving factors for ΔTfire by incorporating latitude, fire regime variables, and their interactions. Our results demonstrate a pronounced asymmetry in diurnal ΔTfire, characterized by daytime warming in contrast to nighttime cooling. Clear latitudinal patterns are found in ΔTfire, with stronger effects in lower latitudes. Such latitudinal patterns of ΔTfire, especially the daytime one, are driven by both latitudinal patterns in fire regimes and an increased sensitivity of ΔTfire to fire regime as the latitude decreases. The multiple linear regression model explains 37% of the variance in daytime ΔTfire, whereas for the nighttime ΔTfire the explanatory power is rather low (5%). For daytime ΔTfire, fire severity accounted for most (43.65%) of the model explanatory power, followed by PBA (24.60%) and fire intensity (13.10%). Our results highlight important fire regime impacts on daytime ΔTfire and, further, on the annual ΔTfire, suggesting that fire might amplify future boreal climate change through positive feedbacks between fire regime and postfire surface warming.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: