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Missing climate feedbacks in fire models: limitations and uncertainties in fuel loadings and the role of decomposition in fine fuel succession
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  • Erin Hanan,
  • Maureen C Kennedy,
  • Jianning Ren,
  • Morris C Johnson,
  • Alistair Matthew Stuart Smith
Erin Hanan
University of Nevada, Reno

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Maureen C Kennedy
University of Washington
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Jianning Ren
University of Nevada, Reno
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Morris C Johnson
United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
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Alistair Matthew Stuart Smith
University of Idaho
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Abstract

In recent decades, climate change has lengthened wildfire seasons globally and doubled the annual area burned. Thus, capturing fire dynamics is critical for projecting Earth system processes in warmer, drier, more fire prone future. Recent advances in fire regime modeling have linked land surface and Earth system models with fire behavior models. Such models often rely on fine surface fuels to drive fire spread, and while many models can simulate processes that control how these fuels change through time (i.e., fine fuel succession), fuel loading estimates remain highly uncertain. Uncertainties are amplified in climate change forecasts when initial conditions and feedbacks are not well represented. The goal of this review is to highlight fine fuel succession as a key uncertainty in model systems. We review the current understanding of mechanisms controlling fine fuel succession (with an emphasis on decomposition), describe how these mechanisms are incorporated into models, and evaluate the strengths and uncertainties associated with different approaches. We also use three state-of-the-art fire regime models to demonstrate the sensitivity of decomposition projections to both parameter and model structure uncertainty and show that sensitivity increases dramatically under future climate warming. Given that many of the governing decomposition equations are hard-coded in models and often based on individual case studies, substantial uncertainties are currently ignored. To understand future climate-fuel-fire feedbacks, it is essential to be transparent about model choices and uncertainty. This is particularly critical as the domain of Earth system models is expanded to include evaluation of future wildfire regimes.