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Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota

Publication ,  Journal Article
Clark, JS
Published in: Nature
January 1, 1988

Of all the impacts of projected climate change on forest ecosystems, perhaps the most difficult to forecast is the potential for altered fire frequency and intensity. Fire regimes in forests are poorly understood for lack of long-term evidence. Here I used petrographic thin sections to determine the annual production of charcoal within a lake catchment in northwestern Minnesota over the past 750 years providing the long and high-resolution record required to elucidate fire regimes. Maximum abundance and frequency occurred in the warm, dry fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Fire importance decreased dramatically with the onset or intensification of the 'little ice age' about AD 1600. Fire cycles with harmonics corresponding to multiples of the 22-year drought cycles of the region and increased fire frequency at times when early successional stands were breaking up, suggest a synergistic influence of climate and fuel accumulation. The anomalously warm, dry twentieth-century climate would have produced substantially different fire regimes from the previous century in the absence of fire suppression. © 1988 Nature Publishing Group.

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Published In

Nature

DOI

ISSN

0028-0836

Publication Date

January 1, 1988

Volume

334

Issue

6179

Start / End Page

233 / 235

Related Subject Headings

  • General Science & Technology
 

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Clark, J. S. (1988). Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota. Nature, 334(6179), 233–235. https://doi.org/10.1038/334233a0
Clark, J. S. “Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota.” Nature 334, no. 6179 (January 1, 1988): 233–35. https://doi.org/10.1038/334233a0.
Clark JS. Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota. Nature. 1988 Jan 1;334(6179):233–5.
Clark, J. S. “Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota.” Nature, vol. 334, no. 6179, Jan. 1988, pp. 233–35. Scopus, doi:10.1038/334233a0.
Clark JS. Effect of climate change on fire regimes in northwestern Minnesota. Nature. 1988 Jan 1;334(6179):233–235.
Journal cover image

Published In

Nature

DOI

ISSN

0028-0836

Publication Date

January 1, 1988

Volume

334

Issue

6179

Start / End Page

233 / 235

Related Subject Headings

  • General Science & Technology