Joe Melton

Dec 19, 2024 | nature.com | Megan C. Kirchmeier-Young |Quinn Barber |Salvatore R. Curasi |Yongxiao Liang |Piyush Jain |Nathan P. Gillett | +4 more

AbstractIn 2023, wildfires burned 15 million hectares in Canada, more than doubling the previous record. These wildfires caused a record number of evacuations, unprecedented air quality impacts across Canada and the northeastern United States, and substantial strain on fire management resources.

Sep 30, 2024 | nature.com | Salvatore R. Curasi |Joe Melton

AbstractWildfire impacts the global carbon cycle, property, harvestable timber, and public health. Canada saw a record fire season in 2023 with 14.9 Mha burned—over seven times the 1986–2022 average of 2.1 Mha. Here we utilize a new process-based wildfire module that explicitly represents fire weather, fuel type and availability, ignition sources, fire suppression, and vegetation’s climate response to project the future of wildfire in Canada.

Jan 16, 2024 | agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Christian Seiler |Sian Kou-Giesbrecht |Vivek Arora |Joe Melton

1 Introduction The 2015 Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty designed to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels (UNFCCC, 2015). To reach this goal, global net anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net-zero around 2050 (Rogelj et al., 2018).

Oct 2, 2023 | nature.com | Peter B. Reich |Sarah E. Hobbie |Corli Coetsee |Edmund C. February |KATERINA GEORGIOU |César Terrer | +9 more

AbstractThe determinants of fire-driven changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) across broad environmental gradients remains unclear, especially in global drylands. Here we combined datasets and field sampling of fire-manipulation experiments to evaluate where and why fire changes SOC and compared our statistical model to simulations from ecosystem models.