CAREER: Forest-atmosphere interactions in an era of fire and drought

在所有陆地生态系统中，森林储存的碳最多，每年通过吸收二氧化碳捕获美国化石燃料排放的约20%。降水模式的变化、气温的升高、燃料负荷的增加以及数十年的灭火导致的干旱和野火正在减少从局部到大陆尺度的森林碳吸收。这一趋势在爱达荷州和西部山间地区尤为普遍，对气候变化和森林管理方案具有重要影响。鉴于森林在气候调节中的关键作用，了解森林对干扰的反应及其对大气的反馈是美国和其他地方的关键研究和政策优先事项。随着温度、火灾和降水制度的不断变化和对森林死亡率的影响，诸如森林间伐等干旱和火灾缓解工作的潜在作用越来越大。这项研究将通过结合新的试验田数据和地球系统模型，评估恢复间伐对气候的影响，这是一项旨在减少与干旱和火灾有关的死亡率的森林管理活动。该项目有三个主要目标：1)量化间伐对区域净温室气体排放和气候的时空影响；2)评估间伐对森林抵御干旱和干扰能力的影响；3)促进对学生和教师关于森林在气候调节中的作用的教育。通过整合新颖的实地技术、现有数据集和最先进的地球系统建模，这项研究将对爱达荷州落基山脉混交林中树木生长的气候和管理控制以及森林-大气气体交换产生科学见解。该项目的目标将推进目前对扰动如何影响森林碳、水和能量平衡的理解，时间步骤从几分钟到几年，这对地球系统模型的开发和评估至关重要。改进的地球系统模型和现有的长期生态研究数据将用于21世纪西部山间森林-大气相互作用的预测。这将提高对森林管理实践和森林气候调节的政策相关理解。此外，这个项目将有助于科学教育。学生和教育工作者将通过收集和分享数据积极参与气候和森林科学研究，并将了解森林如何捕获和释放二氧化碳，以及这些过程如何影响气候。

Forests store the most carbon of any terrestrial ecosystem and capture ~20% of U.S. fossil fuel emissions annually through uptake of carbon dioxide. Drought and wildfire caused by changing precipitation patterns, increased temperatures, increased fuel loads, and decades of fire suppression are reducing forest carbon uptake from local to continental scales. This trend is especially widespread in Idaho and the intermountain west and has important implications for climate change and forest management options. Given the key role of forests in climate regulation, understanding forest responses to disturbance and the feedbacks to the atmosphere is a key research and policy-relevant priority in the U.S. and elsewhere. As temperature, fire, and precipitation regimes continue to change and influence forest mortality, there is a growing potential role for drought and fire mitigation efforts such as forest thinning. This research will evaluate the climate impacts of restoration thinning, a forest management activity aimed at reducing drought- and fire-related mortality, by combining new experimental plot data and earth system modeling. This project has three main goals: 1) quantify the spatial and temporal impacts of thinning on net regional greenhouse gas emissions and climate, 2) evaluate the impact of thinning on forest resilience to drought and disturbance, and 3) contribute to education of students and teachers about the role of forests in climate regulation.By integrating novel, field-based technology, existing datasets, and state-of-the-art earth system modeling, this research will yield scientific insights into both climatic and management controls on tree growth as well as forest-atmosphere gas exchange in the mixed conifer forests of the Rocky Mountains in Idaho. The project objectives will advance the current understanding of how disturbance impacts forest carbon, water, and energy balance at time steps from minutes to years, which is crucial for earth system model development and evaluation. Improved earth system modeling and existing long-term ecological research data will be used to make predictions of forest-atmosphere interactions for the intermountain west over the 21st century. This will improve policy-relevant understanding of forest management practices and forest climate regulation. Additionally, this project will contribute to science education. Students and educators will be actively engaged in climate and forest science research through collection and sharing of data and will learn how forests capture and release carbon dioxide, and how these processes influence climate.