Put me in!

NASA has recently released updated websites for data!

Check out the new Science, Earth, and Planetary data sites!

#OpenScience #NASA #AGU24

science.data.nasa.gov

earthdata.nasa.gov

planetary.data.nasa.gov

So excited for AGU!!

Hello! I'm proud to share a new wildfire paper in Environmental Research Letters - California had recent huge fires but tree loss rose much faster, relatively, than burned area. How much is the per-burned-area impact on tree cover losses rising, and why? Paper: doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad86cf 1/7

Put me in part 2!

Many thanks to collaborators at University of California, Irvine's Dept of Earth System Science who helped guide this study and the University of Utah School of Biological Sciences for the support! Not sure who is on the bsky yet. 7/7

Two maps of California, with varying shades of green indicating the amount of tree cover in each area. Burned areas indicated in orange for the first decade, 1986-1996, on the left and the last decade, 2011-2021, on the right. Fires are present, but modest in area, on the left. Fires are much larger in extent on the right, particularly in the northern forests.

Categories of fire severity (high vs low) are hard to interpret, and might miss climate trends. Remote sensing advances are revealing nuance across ecoregions (big expansion of fire in dense northern forests!). Hope this can improve wildfires observation, forest management, and ecosystem models! 6/7

Line graph showing time on the x axis: year, 1985-2021 and cumulative tree loss in fire on the y axis. Lines and show the cumulative tree loss in modeling scenarios from 1985-2021 based on several scenarios. Black lines show the observed losses, reaching about 13,000 kilometers squared. The purple line represents a model scenario where fire severity is held constant, and it reaches about 10,000 kilometers squared. The red line shows the scenario where forest exposure is held constant, reaching about 8500 kilometers squared. The blue line shows the scenario where fire severity and forest exposure are held constant, and only burned area increases. It ends around 7500 kilometers squared.

Using a simple model of regional tree loss using burned area, fire severity, and forest exposure, we show that 47% (nearly half!) of observed tree losses can be attributed to increasing trends in fire severity and forest exposure. Climate warming will exacerbate this. 5/7

Graph showing summer temperature on the x-axis and precipitation on the y-axis. Each climate bin is colored with the average tree cover (grey to green, 0 to 80%) occupying that part of climate space in California. Black points indicate the location in climate space of fires in the first decade. Blue indicates the same for the middle decade, and red for the last. Large points show the decadal average. The large blue and black points in are clustered around 20 degrees C and 750 mm precipitation. The large red point (last decade) is located at about 18 degrees C and 850 mm precipitation.

Increased forest exposure suggests more dense forests are vulnerable to severe wildfire. In the last decade, wildfire moved in climate space, impacting forests adapted to moister, cooler environments that might have resisted disturbance. 4/7

Four panels. First panel: line graph with red line showing increasing burned area, black line showing increasing tree cover loss from 1985-2021. Second panel: Average forest exposure (as points) and standard deviation (as lines) increasing steadily from 1985-2021. Third Panel: Average fire severity and standard deviation (again, points and lines) increasing steadily over 1985-2021. Fourth panel: the average and standard deviation of the combined effect of forest exposure and fire severity (tree cover loss), again as points and lines, showing steady increases from 1985-2021.

Average fire severity and forest exposure rose by 30% and 41%, respectively, from 1985-2021. The average tree cover loss per burned area used to be 20%, but recently it has been 34%, on average (+70%!). Increased burned area drives most tree loss, but is not the sole factor! 3/7

We used remotely sensed fractional veg cover and disturbance data to quantify forest exposure (how densely treed were burned areas) and fire severity (relative tree loss) in the average wildfire. Disturbance data: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CVTNLY Veg data: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KMBYYM 2/7

Hello! I'm proud to share a new wildfire paper in Environmental Research Letters - California had recent huge fires but tree loss rose much faster, relatively, than burned area. How much is the per-burned-area impact on tree cover losses rising, and why? Paper: doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad86cf 1/7

My first field work experience was in a bog! We ate wild huckleberries the whole time.

Bogs!!

Here is a starter pack for scientists and others interested in Macroecology - go.bsky.app/GBn9pNZ 🌎🧪🦋🌾

Neat!! Thanks for putting this together.

Man it's so nice to just read interesting stuff and not be bombarded with obnoxious ads

Any ecophysiology people looking to do a postdoc with an awesome new lab in beautiful Salt Lake City? Deserts, plants, field work - all awesome stuff! Apply here: https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/157726

We are seeking graduate students at the Dynamic Carbon and Ecosystems (DYCE) lab at the University of Utah for Fall 2024! We use remote sensing to study wildfire, vegetation, and carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Learn more: http://www.dycelab.net

Hi science friends. I finally made a website for my new lab at the University of Utah. Still a work in progress but some things are there. Check it out! http://www.dycelab.net

this week!

Still recruiting for this post-doc position!
https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/139679

If you're interested in studying land and carbon dynamics in Arctic-boreal North America, please apply!

If you're at #AGU22, send me a note and we can make a time to meet in person to chat...

We are recruiting a post-doc to join us at @UofUBiology to work on a NASA Terrestrial Ecology project. Looking for those interested in land cover, biomass, remote sensing, Arctic-boreal ecosystems! DM me with questions, please share widely! https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/139679

n/n

By the way, the vegetation and disturbance datasets are publicly available.
Fractional vegetation cover (tree shrub herb bare), 1985-2021, at 30 m resolution: http://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KMBYYM
Disturbance type, also 1985-2021 and 30 m resolution: http://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CVTNLY

This work is a part of the @CA_CECS and we hope it improves land management and global ecology. Made possible by public data from @USGSLandsat! Many thanks to @uciess @ESPM_Berkeley and co-authors @randersonjt @ClarkeAKnight and not-on-Twitter Mike Goulden and John Battles! 5/n

Tree losses were concentrated in the hottest parts of the state. As summer temperatures continue to climb, even more of California's forests will be threatened by wildfire and climate stress. 4/n

Tree cover dynamics (dark green line, top panel) varied widely geographically. Northern forests were impacted by harvest and recent fires, but recovered when it rained in the 90s. Rapidly warming southern forests might be losing their ability to recover from disturbance. 3/n

Forests are key in natural climate solutions but are threatened by disturbances like fire, making their viability uncertain. Since 1985, forest growth in CA can't keep up with recent extreme wildfire seasons, resulting in a net loss of tree cover by 6.7%. 2/n

https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000654 1/n