Collaborative Research: Holocene Fire-Climate Linkages In Southern South America: Explaining Regional Responses To Large-scale Climate Forcing

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

Funding is provided to examine the interaction of climate variability, fire, and ecosystems. The specific objectives of this project are to gain a better understanding of: (1) fire and vegetation history in South America that is influenced by summer monsoons and ENSO variability at the core region of westerlies; (2) interactions among fire activity and vegetation change on multiple time scales; and (3) past climate change and climate variability as represented by paleo-fire reconstructions and paleoclimate model simulations. The research holds the promise of providing data and a broader understanding of environmental change and its relation to climate. The project will support international scientific partnerships and training opportunities, create education experiences for graduate and undergraduate students in the U.S. and abroad, and expand the recently created international database of paleo-fire records, which serves the needs of the scientific community, as well as natural resource managers and policy makers.