Climate change and forest fires

This paper addresses the impacts of climate change on forest fires and desc ribes how this, in turn, will impact on the forests of the United States. I n addition to reviewing existing studies on climate change and forest fires we have used two transient general circulation models (GCMs), namely the H adley Centre and the Canadian GCMs, to estimate fire season severity in the middle of the next century. Ratios of 2 x CO2 seasonal severity rating (SS R) over present day SSR were calculated for the means and maximums for Nort h America. The results suggest that the SSR will increase by 10-50% over mo st of North America; although, there are regions of little change or where the SSR may decrease by the middle of the next century. Increased SSRs shou ld translate into increased forest fire activity. Thus, forest fires could be viewed as an agent of change for US forests as the fire regime will resp ond rapidly to climate warming. This change in the fire regime has the pote ntial to overshadow the direct effects of climate change on species distrib ution and migration. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.