Fire on earth : an introduction / / Andrew C. Scott [and four others]

• Pubblicazione: Chichester, West Sussex, : Wiley Blackwell, 2014; Chichester, West Sussex : , : Wiley, , 2014
• Edizione: 1st ed.
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (435 pages) : illustrations
• Disciplina: 541.361
• Soggetto topico: Fire - History; Fire ecology; Fire management; Forest fires; Wildfires
• Classificazione: 654.4; 575.8; 541/.361
• Note generali: Other authors: David M.J.S. Bowman, William J. Bond, Stephen J. Pyne, Martin E. Alexander; Includes bibliographical references and index
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Fire on Earth: An Introduction -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- About the Authors -- About the Companion Website -- Part One: Fire in the Earth System -- Preface to part one -- Chapter 1 What is fire? -- 1.1 How fire starts and initially spreads -- 1.2 Lightning and other ignition sources -- 1.3 The charring process -- 1.4 Pyrolysis products -- 1.4.1 Soot -- 1.4.2 Volatile gases and compounds -- 1.5 Fire types -- 1.6 Peat fires -- 1.7 Fire effects on soils -- 1.8 Post-fire erosion-deposition -- 1.9 Fire and vegetation -- 1.10 Fire and climate -- 1.11 Fire triangles -- 1.12 Fire return intervals -- 1.13 How we study fire: satellites -- 1.14 Modelling fire occurrence -- 1.15 Climate forcing -- 1.16 Scales of fire occurrence -- Further reading -- Chapter 2: Fire in the fossil record: recognition -- 2.1 Fire proxies: fire scars and charcoal -- 2.2 The problem of nomenclature: black carbon, char, charcoal, soot and elemental carbon -- 2.3 How we study charcoal: microscopical and chemical techniques -- 2.4 Charcoal as an information-rich source -- 2.5 Charcoal reflectance and temperature -- 2.6 Uses of charcoal -- 2.7 Fire intensity/severity -- 2.8 Deep time studies -- 2.9 Pre-requisite for fire: fuel - the evolution of plants -- 2.10 Charcoal in sedimentary systems -- Further reading -- Chapter 3: Fire in the fossil record: earth system processes -- 3.1 Fire and oxygen -- 3.2 Fire feedbacks -- 3.3 Systems diagrams -- 3.4 Charcoal as proxy for atmospheric oxygen -- 3.5 Burning experiments - fire spread -- 3.6 Fire and the terrestrial system -- Further reading -- Chapter 4: The geological history of fire in deep time: 420 million years to 2 million years ago -- 4.1 Periods of high and low fire, and implications -- 4.2 The first fires -- 4.3 The rise of fire -- 4.4 Fire in the high-oxygen Paleozoic world -- 4.5 Collapse of fire systems. ; 4.6 Fire at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary -- 4.7 Jurassic variation -- 4.8 Cretaceous fires -- 4.9 Fire at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-P or K-T) boundary -- 4.10 Paleocene fires -- 4.11 Fires across the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) -- 4.12 Dampening of fire systems -- 4.13 Rise of the grass-fire cycle -- Further reading -- Chapter 5: The geological history of fire - the last two million years -- 5.1 Problems of Quaternary fire history -- 5.2 The Paleofire working group: techniques and analysis -- 5.3 Fire and climate cycles -- 5.4 Fire and humans: the fossil evidence -- 5.5 Fire and the industrial society -- Further reading -- References for part one -- Part Two: Biology of fire -- Preface to part two -- Chapter 6 Pyrogeography - temporal and spatial patterns of fire -- 6.1 Fire and life -- 6.2 Global climate, vegetation patterns and fire -- 6.3 Pyrogeography -- 6.4 Fire and the control of biome boundaries -- 6.5 The fire regime concept -- 6.6 Fire ecology -- 6.7 Conclusion -- Further reading -- Chapter 7: Plants and fire -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Fire and plant traits -- 7.2.1 Post-burn recovery: vegetative re-growth and storage tissue -- 7.2.2 Post-burn recovery: seedling recruitment -- 7.3 Fire regimes and the characteristic suite of fire plant traits -- 7.3.1 Determinants of fire regime -- 7.3.2 Flammability -- 7.4 Evolution of fire traits -- 7.4.1 Fire survival traits -- 7.4.2 Fire-stimulated reproduction -- 7.4.3 The evolution of flammability -- 7.5 Summary and implications -- Further reading -- General reading -- Chapter 8: Fire and fauna -- 8.1 Direct effects of fire on fauna -- 8.2 The effect of fire regimes on fauna -- 8.3 The landscape mosaic and pyrodiversity -- 8.4 The effect of fauna on fire regimes -- 8.5 Fire and the evolution of fauna -- 8.6 Summary -- Further reading -- Chapter 9: Fire as an ecosystem process. ; 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Fire and erosion -- 9.3 Fire and nutrient cycling -- 9.4 Fire and pedogenesis -- 9.5 Fire and atmospheric chemistry -- 9.6 Fire and climate -- 9.7 Summary -- Further reading -- Chapter 10: Fire and anthropogenic environmental change -- 10.1 Introduction -- 10.2 Prehistoric impacts -- 10.3 Prehistoric fire management -- 10.4 Contemporary fire management -- 10.5 Climate change -- 10.6 Fire and carbon management -- 10.7 Fire regime switches: a major challenge for fire ecology -- 10.8 Invasive plants and altered fire regimes -- 10.9 Conclusion -- Further reading -- References for part two -- Part Three: Anthropogenic fire -- Preface to part three -- Chapter 11: Fire creature -- 11.1 Early hominins: spark of creation -- 11.1.1 Cooking as pyrotechnology -- 11.1.2 Pyric paradigm, from hearth to habitat -- 11.2 Aboriginal fire: control over ignition -- 11.2.1 Principles and patterns -- 11.2.2 Principles and practices -- 11.2.3 By the numbers -- 11.2.4 The firestick in action: selected examples -- 11.3 Cultivated fire: control over combustibles -- 11.3.1 Fire-fallow farming -- 11.3.2 Fire-fallow farming: selected examples -- 11.3.3 Fire-forage pastoralism -- 11.3.4 Agro-economies of mixed fire: selected examples -- 11.4 Ideas and institutions: lore and ritual -- 11.5 Narrative arcs (and equants) -- 11.5.1 Frontier narratives -- 11.5.2 Grand or long-wave narratives -- Further reading -- Chapter 12: A new epoch of fire: the anthropocene -- 12.1 The Great Disruption -- 12.2 The pyric transition -- 12.2.1 The mechanisms of regime change -- 12.2.2 Combustion's new fire regimes -- 12.2.3 Fire's industrial revolution -- 12.3 Enlightenment and empire -- 12.3.1 Enlightenment fire -- 12.3.2 Imperial fire -- 12.4 Scaling the transition -- 12.4.1 Global -- 12.4.2 Subcontinental -- 12.4.3 National -- 12.5 After the revolution. ; 12.5.1 Trends in pyrotechnology -- 12.5.2 Trends in pyrogeography: selected examples -- Further reading -- Chapter 13: Fire management -- 13.1 Introducing integrated fire management -- 13.2 Two realms: managing the pyric transition -- 13.2.1 Amid the transition -- 13.2.2 After the transition -- 13.3 Strategies -- 13.3.1 Strategy 1: leave to nature -- 13.3.2 Strategy 2: replace wild fire with tame fire -- 13.3.3 Strategy 3: change the combustibility of the land -- 13.3.4 Strategy 4: suppress -- 13.4 Institutions: ordering fire -- 13.4.1 Fire management operations -- 13.4.2 Fire research -- 13.5 Ideas: conceptions of fire -- 13.5.1 The models as world views -- 13.5.2 The models as management -- 13.6 Fire management: selected examples -- 13.6.1 Banff National Park, Canada -- 13.6.2 Kruger National Park, South Africa -- 13.6.3 La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve, Mexico -- 13.6.4 West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project, Australia -- 13.6.5 Västernorrland County, Sweden -- Further reading -- References and further reading for part three -- Part Four: The Science and Art of Wildland Fire Behaviour Prediction -- Preface to part four -- Chapter 14: Fundamentals of wildland fire as a physical process -- 14.1 Introduction -- 14.2 The basics of combustion and heat transfer -- 14.2.1 Combustion chemistry -- 14.2.2 Combustion phases -- 14.2.3 Parts of a spreading fire -- 14.2.4 Principles of heat transfer and fire spread -- 14.3 The wildland fire environment concept -- 14.3.1 Fire weather and climate -- 14.3.2 Fuels -- 14.3.3 Topography -- 14.3.4 Variations and interactions -- 14.3.5 Methods of monitoring and assessment -- 14.4 Characterization of wildland fire behaviour -- 14.4.1 Types of wildland fires -- 14.4.2 Point and line source fire growth following ignition -- 14.4.3 Rate of fire spread -- 14.4.4 Fire shape and size -- 14.4.5 Fuel consumption. ; 14.4.6 Flame front dimensions and characteristics -- 14.4.7 Fireline intensity -- 14.4.8 Crown fire initiation and propagation -- 14.4.9 Fire impact zones -- 14.5 Extreme wildland fire behaviour phenomena -- 14.5.1 Continuous crowning -- 14.5.2 Extremely fast rates of fire spread -- 14.5.3 High fireline intensities and large flames -- 14.5.4 Prolific spotting -- 14.5.5 Presence of large fire whirls and other vortices -- 14.5.6 Well-established convection column -- 14.6 Field methods of measuring and quantifying wildland fire behaviour -- 14.7 Towards increasing our understanding of wildland fire behaviour -- Further reading -- Chapter 15: Estimating free-burning wildland fire behaviour -- 15.1 Introduction -- 15.2 A historical sketch of wildland fire behaviour research -- 15.2.1 Experimental fire behaviour field studies -- 15.2.2 Laboratory test fires -- 15.2.3 Wildfire monitoring and case studies -- 15.2.4 Operational prescribed fires -- 15.2.5 Individual fire report data -- 15.3 Models, systems and guides for predicting wildland fire behaviour -- 15.3.1 The formative years -- 15.3.2 Forms of decision aids and field guides -- 15.3.3 Types of fire behaviour models -- 15.3.4 The two solitudes in wildland fire behaviour research -- 15.3.5 Current operational fire danger rating and fire behaviour modelling systems -- 15.4 Limitations on the accuracy of model predictions of wildland fire behaviour -- 15.4.1 Three sources of error -- 15.5 The wildland fire behaviour prediction process -- 15.5.1 Assumptions -- 15.5.2 General procedures -- 15.5.3 Means of dealing with uncertainty -- 15.5.4 Gauging the potential for extreme fire behaviour -- 15.6 Specialized support in assessing wildland fire behaviour -- 15.7 Looking ahead -- Further reading -- Chapter 16: Fire management applications of wildland fire behaviour knowledge -- 16.1 Introduction. ; 16.2 Wildfire suppression.
• Sommario/riassunto: Earth is the only planet known to have fire. The reason is both simple and profound: fire exists because Earth is the only planet to possess life as we know it. Fire is an expression of life on Earth and an index of life's history. Few processes are as integral, unique, or ancient. Fire on Earth puts fire in its rightful place as an integral part of the study of geology, biology, human history, physics, and global chemistry. Fire is ubiquitous in various forms throughout Earth, and belongs as part of formal inquiries about our world. In recent years fire literature has multiplied exponentially; dedicated journals exist and half a dozen international conferences are held annually. A host of formal sciences, or programs announcing interdisciplinary intentions, are willing to consider fire. Wildfire also appears routinely in media reporting. This full-colour text, containing over 250 illustrations of fire in all contexts, is designed to provide a synthesis of contemporary thinking; bringing together the most powerful concepts and disciplinary voices to examine, in an international setting, why planetary fire exists, how it works, and why it looks the way it does today. Students, lecturers, researchers and professionals interested in the physical, ecological and historical characteristics of fire will find this book, and accompanying web-based material, essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in all related disciplines, for general interest and for providing an interdisciplinary foundation for further study. A comprehensive approach to the history, behaviour and ecological effects of fire on earth Timely introduction to this important subject, with relevance for global climate change, biodiversity loss and the evolution of human culture. Provides a foundation for the interdisciplinary field of Fire Research Authored by an; international team of leading experts in the field Associated website provides additional resources.
• Titolo autorizzato: Fire on earth
• ISBN: 1-119-95357-X; 1-118-53409-3; 1-118-57071-5
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910821196403321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II