The carbon costs of mitigating high-severity wildfire in southwestern ponderosa pine

摘要: Forests provide climate change mitigation benefit by sequestering carbon during growth. This can be reversed both human and natural disturbances. While some disturbances such as hurricanes are beyond the control of humans, extensive research in dry, temperate forests indicates that wildfire severity altered a function forest fuels stand structural manipulations. The purpose this study was to determine if current aboveground stocks fire-excluded southwestern ponderosa pine higher than prefire exclusion reconstructed from 1876, quantify costs thinning treatments reduce high-severity risk, compare posttreatment (thinning burning) with 1876 stocks. Our findings indicate ranged 27.9 36.6 Mg C ha 1 structure contained on average 2.3 times much live tree carbon. Posttreatment 37.9 50.6 intensity. Previous work found these burning substantially increased 6.1 m wind speed necessary for fire move floor canopy (torching index) sustained crown (crowning index), thereby reducing potential severity. Given projected drying increase prevalence region changing climatic conditions, stock is unlikely sustainable. Treatments risk require trade-offs between size stability.