H087-0002
Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Live Fuel Moisture and Wildfire Danger Using a Dynamic Vegetation Model

Thursday, 10 December 2020
Poster
Wu Ma1, Lu Zhai2, Alexandria Lynn Pivovaroff3, Jacquelyn K Shuman4, Polly Buotte5, Junyan Ding6, Bradley Christoffersen7, Max Moritz8, Charlie Koven9, Lara M Kueppers10 and Chonggang Xu1, (1)Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States, (2)University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States, (3)Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Richland, WA, United States, (4)University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, (5)University of California, Berkeley, Energy and Resources Group, Berkeley, CA, United States, (6)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Berkeley, CA, United States, (7)University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, United States, (8)University of California, Santa Barbara , UC Cooperative Extension, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, (9)Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,, Berkeley, CA, United States, (10)University of California Berkeley, Energy and Resources Group, Berkeley, CA, United States
Abstract:
Live fuel moisture content plays a critical role in wildfire dynamics, but little is known about how climate change would influence live fuel moisture, including chaparral shrub species. To better understand wildfire danger under future climate change, we developed a process-based component to estimate live fuel moisture dynamics of chaparral shrub species in southern California by a plant hydrodynamics model (FATES-HYDRO). FATES-HYDRO accuracy was evaluated through comparisons between predicted and observed soil water content, live fuel moisture, and leaf water potential of three plant functional types (PFTs), parameterized based on their allometry and hydraulic traits. Using historical and future climate drivers from the Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs (MACA) database with 20 general circulation models for climate scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5, we estimated number of days per year of live moisture content below 60% and 79% (i.e. thresholds for wildfire danger ratings) from 1950 to 2100 for each PFT. We found that climate change could lead to more days (10.2-25.6% increase) with live fuel moisture content below 60% and therefore an increasing wildlife danger over time for chaparral shrubs in southern California. Our results suggest that reductions in live fuel moisture from warming could exacerbate future wildfire danger.
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