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Over the past 50 years, Alaska has experienced a warming climate with longer growing seasons, increased potential evapotranspiration, and permafrost warming. Research from the Seward Peninsula and Kenai Peninsula has demonstrated a substantial landscape-level trend in the reduction of surface water and number of closed-basin ponds. We investigated whether this drying trend occurred at nine other regions throughout Alaska. One study region was from the Arctic Coastal Plain where deep permafrost occurs continuously across the landscape. The other eight study regions were from the boreal forest regions where discontinuous permafrost occurs. Mean annual precipitation across the study regions ranged from 100 to over...
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Much of the boreal forest in western North America and Alaska experiences frequent, stand-replacing wildfires. Secondary succession after fire initiates most forest stands and variations in fire characteristics can have strong effects on pathways of succession. Variations in surface fire severity that influence whether regenerating forests are dominated by coniferous or deciduous species can feedback to influence future fire behaviour because of differences in forest flammability. We used a landscape model of fire and forest dynamics to explore the effects of different scenarios of surface fire severity on subsequent forest succession and potential fire activity in interior Alaska. Model simulations indicated that...
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