My final project repository for RCES, Fall 2020
Caroline Juang (csj2116)
Research Computing for the Earth Sciences, Columbia University
Fuel type and Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) regional relationships on Burned Area in the Western United States
Fire activity in the western United States (US) presents a clear danger to human life and infrastructure, establishing a need to study the variables that may influence fire. In this notebook, I will explore both the fuel availability and the climate and look at patterns across western United States ecoregions. Two questions lead my investigation: (1) What is the contribution of forest and non-forest ecosystems to fire in the western US? (2) What kind of relationship exists between burn area and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) by region?
Fire burned area data are by Caroline Juang and Park Williams, modified from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program (fires 1984-2018), the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) (fires 1984-2017), and the National Fire and Aviation Management (FAM) (fires 1984-2018).
Forest type data are by Bonnie Ruefenacht of the United States Forest Service and modified into a fractional gridded data product.
Level II Ecoregion boundaries are by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and modified into a fractional gridded data product.
Vapor pressure was calculated from dew point data. Gridded records of monthly mean dew point come from PRISM (Daly et al., 2004)
Saturation vapor pressure was calculated from mean maximum daily temperature (Tmax) and mean minimum daily temperature (Tmin). Monthly gridded records of Tmax and Tmin were calculated from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climgrid dataset (Vose et al., 2014)