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ReviewFire in the Earth System
Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models. Here, we discuss some of the most important issues involved in developing a better understanding of the role of fire in the Earth system.
1 The University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia.
2 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA. 3 Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. 4 Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA. 5 Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Física, CEP 05508-900, São Paulo, Brazil. 6 University of Cape Town, Department of Botany, Cape Town, South Africa. 7 University of California, Department of Physics, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. 8 South Dakota State University, Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence, Brookings, SD 57007, USA. 9 University of California, Environmental Studies Program and Department of Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. 10 Columbia University, Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, New York, NY 10027, USA. 11 California Institute of Technology, Department of Control and Dynamical Systems, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. 12 School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK. 13 University of Tasmania, Menzies Research Institute, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia. 14 U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Sequoia-Kings Canyon Field Station, Three Rivers, CA 93271, USA. 15 University of California, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. 16 University of California, Ecosystem Sciences Division, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. 17 Monash University, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia. 18 Brown University, Department of Physics, Providence, RI 02912, USA. 19 QUEST, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK. 20 Ohio State University, Department of Anthropology, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. 21 Royal Holloway University of London, Department of Earth Sciences, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. 22 The University of Arizona, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. 23 VU University, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Department of Hydrology and Geo-environmental Sciences, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 24 Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. * These authors contributed equally to this work.
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To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
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