TECO: The Role of Wildfire in Alaska: Experimental and Regional Approaches to Improved Understanding of Boreal Feedbacks to Climate (FROSTFIRE)

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9728963 Chapin The purpose of this research submitted to the Interagency competition on Terrestrial Ecology and Global Change (TECO) is to develop a predictive understanding of the major classes of feedbacks from boreal fire to climate as a basis for improved understanding of the changing role of the boreal forest in the earth's climate system. The goal is to understand processes that remain outside of current general circulation models (GCM's). These processes reflect "surprises" that reduce the reliability of GCM's to predict climate change because of limited understanding of the role of biotic and ecosystem feedbacks to regional and global dynamics. This project involves an integrative, large-scale field experiment in the boreal forest along with studies of paleoecological dynamics, and fire and climate modeling. The project will integrate measurements of forest dynamics following burning, soil processes, trace gas fluxes, and paleoecological reconstruction of vegetation and climate. The research will be conducted in association with the Bonanza Creek LTER program in Alaska. Once the field experiments are established, the long-term monitoring of field manipulation and experimental burning treatments initiated in this TECO project will become part of the Bonanza Creek LTER program. The project is important because it represents one of the few extensive and integrative assessments of the feedbacks between fire in boreal forest and global climate dynamics.