CLIME: Climate-Landscape Interactions on a Mountain Ecosystem Transect

FireBGCv2 simulations for the CLIME project are structured to assess the effects of climate changes and wildfire disturbance on ecosystem processes across multiple simulation landscapes in the western US.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS (Staff)

Robert E. Keane, Research Ecologist; Rachel A. Loehman, Research Ecologist

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Daniel B. Fagre, USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

We incorporate multiple potential future climate regimes spanning a range of warm-wet and hot-dry conditions, and couple these with varying levels of fire management treatments and disturbance processes such as mountain pine beetle epidemics and white pine blister rust to evaluate the isolated and synergistic effects of climate, wildfires, and other disturbance on species distributions, vegetation structure, carbon balance, fuels accumulation, wildlife habitat suitability, and hydrologic dynamics. In addition, we evaluate climate effects on wildfire spatial patterns and severity, and test a variety of landscape restoration treatments under potential future climate regimes. Our results are synthesized across the simulation landscapes to quantify landscape vulnerabilities and potential climate- and wildfire-driven shifts in processes and functions across ecological gradients.

FUNDING ORGANIZATION

The CLIMET project received funding from the Western Mountain Initiative.