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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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What's going to determine whether what replaces conifers looks like an oak grassland or more like a Sierra version of chaparral?
@silence7 Yeah that's a great question. We haven't done the work to model the expected movement of chaparral, oak woodland, or mixed broadleaf forest into these conifer forests, but that's definitely forthcoming. We just kind of did the inverse here, modeling where conifers were likely to recede. Generally, chaparral prefers steeper, sun exposed slopes. Wildfire frequency will also be very important. Chaparral likes fire, but has a hard time when fires are more frequent than every 30 years.
@silence7 I think a very interesting implication of the fire-dependency of vegetation composition is that we will actually need to make some decisions about what vegetation we /want/ to see in these areas. Like the wildfire regime is heavily managed today, and these decisions impact what vegetation will be more likely to expand into these forests. So there's important choices being made, whether we fully understand the implications or not.
It's becoming what I call the fire kill zone. There's a lot of CA, some of which is inhabited, that will burn completely. Not an if, a when. People are actively moving to forested places like Grass Valley and Murphy's to get out of the city and into a beautiful natural space, only to slowly watch all the forests die and eventually burn completely, likely to turn to desert after they burn.