Abstract:

Fire behavior is changing globally, but we lack a fundamental understanding of the controls and consequences of these changes. In my talk I will discuss three key questions to address these gaps:

      1. What are the environmental rules that govern fire behavior across Earth’s biomes?

      2. How do climate-fire-vegetation feedbacks create regime shifts in fire dynamics?

      3. What are the impacts on ecosystems?

I will illustrate these questions with case studies from boreal and temperate ecosystems, as well as global fire patterns derived from a novel global fire tracking system.