Potential Military Management Lands Modeling Activities (Draft – 15 January 2014)
Question 1: How does simulated fire frequency respond to different climate scenarios during the 21st
Century on, and adjacent to, military lands of the Upper Tanana Valley?
Strategy: Analyze IEM wide simulations for the Upper Tanana Hydrologic Basin (upstream of the Nenana
River Sub-basin) and for military lands within the Upper Tanana Hydrologic Basin.
Analyses of Interest: (1) Chronology of percent of land annually burned within the analysis units (areas
of interest) through the 21st Century (this may need to be summarized on a decadal scale to reveal long
term trends); (2) Maps of probability of burning during the 21st Century for analysis units at 1-km
resolution (for purposes of identifying hotspots).
Other Notes: This analysis can be done for ALFRESCO output from Generation 1A simulations (which we
are currently conducting), and for Generation 1B (if these differ from 1A) and Generation 2A.
Generation 1 simulations (ALFRESCO stand-alone mode) assess how changing climate will affect wildfire
regime over the landscape (fire frequency and severity). Generation 2 simulations (ALFRESCO and TEM
synchronously coupled) take into account how the effect of fire on the vegetation, the organic layer and
the permafrost feedbacks on fire regime. The comparison of results between Generation 2A and 1A/1B
will be useful for understanding the importance of feedbacks from the fully coupled system. Note that
the analyses of interest for Generation 1A/1B analyses would be based on the ensemble of 200
ALFRESCO simulations, but that there may only be 5 to 10 simulations in the ensemble for Generation
2A ALFRESCO simulations because of only a reduced set of simulations would be possible in the fully
coupled system. One suggestion was to run the model for the 0th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 100th percentile
realizations of the uncoupled simulations.
Question 2: Can the maintenance of deciduous forest in transition zones between military and nonmilitary lands affect wildfire occurrence and extent in the Upper Tanana Hydrologic Basin during the
21st Century?
Strategy: Explore hypothetical landscape-scale fuel treatments using prescribed fuel (vegetation)
scenarios – manipulating vegetation types across the landscape and through time. For example, explore
model response to a conversion, by 2020, of all black spruce grid cells within a transition zone between
military and non-military lands to deciduous forest and then maintain this deciduous forest buffer
throughout the remainder of simulations. Develop a suite of experiment simulations and analyze the
variables of interest in questions 1 and 2 and compare with the results from those earlier simulations.
Other Notes: See notes for question 1.
1
Question 3: How will moose habitat suitability change on military lands in the Upper Tanana
Hydrologic Basin through the 21st Century?
Strategy: Analyze IEM wide simulations for military lands within the Upper Tanana Hydrologic Basin.
Analyses of Interest: (1) Moose habitat suitability on military lands in the Upper Tanana Hydrologic
Basin through the 21st Century (this may need to be summarized on a decadal scale); (2) Maps for
analysis at 1-km resolution of vegetation composition and age structure during the 21st Century.
Vegetation age thresholds established collaboratively with DoD land managers would be developed to
characterize changes in habitat composition and extent.
Other Notes: See notes for question 1.
Question 4: Would a biofuels program on military lands in the upper Tanana Valley affect wildfire
activities in and adjacent to military lands in the Upper Tanana Hydrologic Basin during the 21st
Century?
Strategy: Implement biofuels harvest at several different intensities (say 0.25% vs. 1% of black spruce
per year harvested) on military lands through the 21st Century. Redo the simulations used to answer
question 1 above and analyze the variables of interest in questions 1 and compare with the results from
earlier simulations.
Other Notes: See notes for question 1. There may be effects of the spatial pattern of harvest (random,
uniform, clumped) as well as the temporal phasing of harvest for a particular spatial pattern. If we
decide to do this, we might just want to pick a simple scenario (e.g. uniform harvest in a simple temporal
sequence) just to see the degree to which this affects fire frequency and escapement.
2