Earth, wind and fire

Fire 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 c...

Earth and Fire: Ceramics from Thesheldon Memorial Art Gallery

Sensitivity of atypical lateral fire spread to wind and slope

This study presents new knowledge of the environmental sensitivity of a dynamic mode of atypical wildland fire spread on steep lee-facing slopes. This is achieved through a series of idealized numerical simulations performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and WRF-Fire coupled atmosphere-fire models. The sensitivity of the atypical lateral fire spread across lee slopes is tested...

Solar wind plasma correlations between L1 and Earth

Solar wind plasma data from ISEE 3 at the L1 point and IMP 8 in Earth orbit are compared to determine how well an L1 monitor predicts plasma conditions at Earth. These data cover the time period August 1978 to February 1980, approaching solar maximum. Data are divided into 6-hour blocks, time shifted to compensate for the radial separation of the spacecraft, and interpolated to provide identica...

The impact of fire on the Late Paleozoic Earth system

Analyses of bulk petrographic data indicate that during the Late Paleozoic wildfires were more prevalent than at present. We propose that the development of fire systems through this interval was controlled predominantly by the elevated atmospheric oxygen concentration (p(O2)) that mass balance models predict prevailed. At higher levels of p(O2), increased fire activity would have rendered vege...