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EESA Faculty Scientist Shares Forest Insights Relevant to Wildfires with California State Assembly2 min read

by Christina Procopiou on April 12, 2018

Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Modeling Program GC-Climate Carbon Sink GC-Sustainable Earth

Jeff Chambers, faculty scientist within the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab, provided testimony during a recent informational hearing of the California State Assembly focused on the impact of climate change on wildfire risk. Chambers was among a number of subject matter  experts called upon to share knowledge relevant to the lawmakers’ consideration of the nearly 9,000 wildfires that affected California in 2017.

According to experts at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, catastrophic events such as the largest of these wildfires are the greatest threat to the state’s 33 million acres of forest. Chambers, who has been studying the damage done to forested ecosystems by extreme events throughout  California, the United States Gulf Coast, and the Tropics, is regularly called upon to share his knowledge of how tree mortality affects a forest’s ability to sequester carbon and provide other beneficial functions. He currently leads the NGEE-Tropics program at Berkeley Lab.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Chambers led a team of researchers who estimated that more than 300 million Gulf Coast trees had died or suffered severe damage as a result of the storm.  More recently, Chambers and colleagues used satellite images of Puerto Rico and image processing techniques to draw similar conclusions about the damage inflicted on the island’s trees by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.  He’s currently working on a UCOP-funded Mexico Initiative study comparing the impact of drought on tree mortality in the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Madre Occidental.

At the February hearing in Sacramento, Chambers addressed state legislators about the potential for using similar tools to determine how California wildfires affect tree health and mortality. The ecologist referenced what he’d learned from contributing to a UC Berkeley-led effort to assess the impact of extreme drought on tree mortality in the Sierra Nevada during the years 2013 through 2016.

Chambers says that it was clear during the informational hearing that lawmakers were deeply concerned about the effects the state’s many wildfires could have on California forests. “The hearing itself focused mainly on the fires,” says Chambers. “But the lawmakers were also keenly interested in additional factors – like drought and climate change  – that could impact the state’s forests.”

 

News & Events

Former Intern Emily Nagamoto Wins AGU Award1 min read

March 27, 2023

Former Science Undergraduate Laboratory Intern (SULI) Emily Nagamoto received an American Geophysical Union (AGU) Outstanding Presentation Award, which honors exceptional presentations given during AGU’s 2022 Fall meeting. She was mentored by Staff Scientist Charuleka Varadharajan and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Mohammed Ombadi during her Summer 2022 SULI term. Currently an undergraduate student in Duke University’s Nicholas…

EESA Scientists Investigate How Tropical Soil Microbes Might Respond to Future Droughts2 min read

March 14, 2023

As the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems on Earth, tropical rainforests are just as critical to sustaining environmental and human systems as they are beautiful. Their unique climate with high temperatures, humidity, and precipitation promotes high primary productivity, which offsets high respiration, resulting in these ecosystems being one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth,…

Doubling Protected Lands for Biodiversity Could Require Tradeoffs With Other Land Uses, Study Finds4 min read

March 3, 2023

This article first appeared on lbl.gov. Scientists show how 30% protected land targets may not safeguard biodiversity hotspots and may negatively affect other sectors – and how data and analysis can support effective conservation and land use planning Although more than half the world’s countries have committed to protecting at least 30% of land and oceans…

Six Berkeley Lab Scientists Named AAAS Fellows6 min read

This article first appeared at lbl.gov Six researchers have been elected into the 2022 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced their 2022 Fellows, including six scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This lifetime honor, which follows…

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