Recent changes in climate including earlier springs, longer summers and changes in moisture patterns across the landscape, are affecting wildfire regimes of the arctic-boreal region including…

This is a Cooperative Agreement awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) for a project titled "Understanding the Vulnerability and Resiliency of Boreal-Taiga Ecosystems to Wildfire in a Changing Climate." The $623,406 contract will fund research to study the impacts of recent climate changes and increasing wildfires on ecosystems in the Arctic-Boreal region of western North America, with a focus on areas in Canada's Northwest Territories. The project builds on previous NASA-funded research by Michigan Tech on boreal peatland vulnerability to fire. Key objectives include investigating spatial and temporal variations in fire severity, evaluating how fire effects differ across ecological zones and permafrost conditions, and determining pre-season fuel moisture patterns that could indicate potential wildfire extent and severity. The research will leverage field data and remote sensing to characterize fire impacts and ecosystem responses across a range of sites. This contract does not have a set-aside designation.

Recent changes in climate including earlier springs, longer summers and changes in moisture patterns across the landscape, are affecting wildfire regimes of the arctic-boreal region including intensity, severity and frequency of wildfires. During the summer of 2014, a record breaking year of wildfire occurred (3.4 million hectares) in the southern part of the northwest territories of canada (NWT). The 2014 fires traversed gradients of ecozones, permafrost zones, ecosystem types, severity of burn and seasons of fire. The proposed project addresses questions about the vulnerability and resiliency of these NWT ecosystems to climate change including: 1) what are the controls on spatial and temporal variations in fire severity?; 2) do fire effects (hydrology and revegetation) vary across different ecological zones and permafrost conditions?; and 3) are pre-season fuel moisture patterns indicative of potential wildfire extent, severity and distribution? By studying a range of sites stratified across these gradients of biotic and abiotic factors we will improve our understanding of the vulnerability of a variety of ecosystems to wildfire, fire behavior, c consumption/emissions and the trajectories of succession that will ensue. This is particularly important for peatland ecosystems with deep organic soil profiles which are estimated to cover more than 75% of the southern NWT landscape, but also for determining thresholds that may change successional trajectories. Permafrost is the second most prevalent disturbance factor after wildfire in northern latitudes. There is evidence that climate change is exacerbating both wildfire and permafrost and the feedbacks between them. The diverse landscape of southern NWT allows US to evaluate the effects of both wildfire and permafrost thaw across 3 permafrost zones from sporadic to continuous. The proposed work builds from two previous NASA TE projects, grant #NNX09AM15G to consider the impacts of climate change on the vulnerability of boreal peatlands to fire and a one year NASA rapid response grant #NNX15AD58G that is focused on capturing the time critical field and remote sensing data in summer 2015, within 1 year of the NWT fires. The previous peatland project was focused on central alberta where wildfires occurred only in spring during the period of study (2009-2014). This lack of seasonality of wildfire limited the analysis to conditions when water tables are typically high and burn severity typically low. Further, the previous project revealed important data gaps for understanding c emissions from peatlands. The proposed project will leverage these two previous projects to improve our understanding of the vulnerability and resiliency of boreal ecosystems to wildfire and the interaction with permfrost thaw. Field and remote sensing data will be collected for mapping peatlands, wetlands, uplands, burn severity to the surface organic layers, soil moisture pre- and post-fire, revegetation, fuel consumption, fire-progression, and permafrost condition to characterize the fire effects and response in a cross section of these fire-disturbed sites. Time critical data will be collected in the summer of 2015, within one year of the events through the rapid response grant. Under the proposed above project, we plan to analyze the data collected in 2015 and continue the study through remote sensing and field analysis to monitor the longer term effects of wildfire on this diverse landscape through 2018. This proposed project will continue to develop a better understanding of our changing climate, the impacts IT has on our boreal-taiga ecosystems and fire behavior. This proposal directly addresses the overarching science question for above on how vulnerable or resilient are ecosystems to environmental change in the arctic-boreal region of western north america with a focus on wildfire, which is the most prevalent disturbance factor in the north.