Simulated Wildfire Impacts on Boreal Forest Carbon and Soil Temperature

NASA's dataset contains simulations of net primary production (NPP), heterotrophic respiration (RH), net ecosystem production (NEP), and soil temperature for North American boreal forests from 1986 to 2020. It models interactions between canopy, fire, and soil thermal dynamics using an enhanced Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) with a soil surface energy balance. The data includes area-weighted outputs from simulations with and without fire disturbance and canopy energy balance schemes.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in net ecosystem production based on simulated fire history.
• Quantifying the impact of canopy cover on post-fire soil temperature dynamics.
• Comparing carbon flux simulations (NPP, RH, NEP) between burned and unburned forest scenarios.
• Assessing burn severity using delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) values calculated per fire.

Strengths

• Covers a 35-year time series (1986-2020) for longitudinal analysis.
• Integrates multiple data sources, including historical fire records and Landsat imagery.
• Provides results from controlled simulation experiments (with/without fire, with/without canopy scheme).

Limitations

• Column names and exact data structure are not specified in the provided metadata.
• Conflicting last-updated dates exist between platforms (2026-04-10 on datagov vs. 2020-12-31 on nasa_earthdata).
• Dataset size and row counts are unknown.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Model simulation using a revised Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) incorporating a soil surface energy balance and fire history data.

Time Range

1986-2020

Freshness

2026-04-10 02:01:03.607765

Geography

North American boreal forests