Identification

Title

The influence of fire-induced surface changes on the diurnal temperature changes over the Hayman fire scar

Abstract

During the 2010 Bio-Hydro-Atmosphere Interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, and Nitrogen (BEACHON) experiment in Colorado, nighttime temperatures over a site within the 2002 "Hayman'' fire scar were considerably warmer than over the "Manitou'' site that was located outside the fire scar. Temperature differences reached up to 7Kat the surface and extended to an average of 500m AGL. Afternoon temperatures through the planetary boundary layer (PBL) were similar at the two locations. PBL growth during the day was more rapid at Manitou until 1300 local time, after which the two daytime PBLs had similar temperatures and depths. Observations were taken in fair weather, with weak winds. Runs of the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (ARW-WRF) coupled to the Noah-MP land surface model suggest that the fire-induced loss of surface and soil organic matter accounted for the 3-4-K warming at Hayman relative to its prefire state, more than compensating for the cooling due to the fire-induced change in vegetation from forest to grassland. Modeled surface fluxes and soil temperature and moisture changes were consistent with observational studies comparing several-year-old fire scars with adjacent unaffected forests. The remaining difference between the two sites is likely from cold-air pooling at Manitou. It was necessary to increase vertical resolution and replace terrain-following diffusion with horizontal diffusion in ARW-WRF to better capture nighttime near-surface temperature and winds. Daytime PBL growth and afternoon temperature profiles were reasonably reproduced by the basic run with postfire conditions. Winds above the surface were only fairly represented, and refinements made to capture cold pooling degraded daytime temperature profiles slightly.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79w0h94

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact