Paper Title

Hydro-Climatic Variability and Perturbations in Mexico's North-Western Temperate Forests

Presenter(s)

Jose Navar

Abstract

Climate variability and/or climate change control/s the local hydrological cycle and consequently forest perturbations such as wildfires, bark beetle outbreaks and eventually tree and forest die-off. This case study addressed the following concerns: a) the long-term trends in precipitation, P, potential and actual evapotranspiration, E and Et, runoff, Q, soil moisture content, θ, the number of wildfires, No, the burned area, A, and bark beetle outbreaks, BBO and b) the manner in which the fire occurrence, fire size and beetle outbreaks are related to these hydrological variables and multi-decadal climate indices in Mexico's north-western temperate forests.Using daily measurements of P and E as well as the modeled interception loss, I, and Et, runoff, Q, and soil moisture content, θ, were computed using a mass balance budget model. Mann-Kendall, linear regression, and auto-regressive integrated moving averaging, ARIMA, techniques were used to evaluated the statistical significance of monotonic trends on the first momentum for the monthly and annual time series of hydro-climate (1945-2007), forest wildfire (1970-2012), and bark beetle infestation (1999-2012) data. The statistical analysis showed time series to be stationary in the first momentum. Recent wildfires and bark beetle population eruptions are associated with low modeled dry season θ over several years. Drought spells, frosts, and pulses of high area burned,and high number of wildfires preceded acute discrete bark beetle population eruptions and tree die-off.

Topic

Climate Change

Start Date

6-16-2016 9:10 AM

End Date

6-16-2016 9:30 AM

Room

High Country Conference Center

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Jun 16th, 9:10 AM Jun 16th, 9:30 AM

Hydro-Climatic Variability and Perturbations in Mexico's North-Western Temperate Forests

High Country Conference Center

Climate variability and/or climate change control/s the local hydrological cycle and consequently forest perturbations such as wildfires, bark beetle outbreaks and eventually tree and forest die-off. This case study addressed the following concerns: a) the long-term trends in precipitation, P, potential and actual evapotranspiration, E and Et, runoff, Q, soil moisture content, θ, the number of wildfires, No, the burned area, A, and bark beetle outbreaks, BBO and b) the manner in which the fire occurrence, fire size and beetle outbreaks are related to these hydrological variables and multi-decadal climate indices in Mexico's north-western temperate forests.Using daily measurements of P and E as well as the modeled interception loss, I, and Et, runoff, Q, and soil moisture content, θ, were computed using a mass balance budget model. Mann-Kendall, linear regression, and auto-regressive integrated moving averaging, ARIMA, techniques were used to evaluated the statistical significance of monotonic trends on the first momentum for the monthly and annual time series of hydro-climate (1945-2007), forest wildfire (1970-2012), and bark beetle infestation (1999-2012) data. The statistical analysis showed time series to be stationary in the first momentum. Recent wildfires and bark beetle population eruptions are associated with low modeled dry season θ over several years. Drought spells, frosts, and pulses of high area burned,and high number of wildfires preceded acute discrete bark beetle population eruptions and tree die-off.