My thesis research is focused on understanding the drivers behind vegetation fire at global and regional scales in order to understand the future impact of burning on ecosystems and the atmosphere.
I am currently working on improving the fire module within the LM3 global land and vegetation model run by the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (NOAA-GFDL
). LM3 simulates the presence of different land cover and land use types; because humans are so important to the fire regime in most parts of the world, this tiling could lead to more realistic simulations of burned area. These in turn will help us to better understand the amount of greenhouse gases and aerosols emitted from terrestrial ecosystems across the world.
In the future, I will focus on simulating the occurrence and effects of fire in the Amazon rainforest. This historically fire-free (for all intents and purposes) ecosystem is burning more than ever. Combined with future climate changes across the Amazon Basin, fire could drastically alter large areas of the forest; realistic fire models are needed to assess the likelihood and magnitude of this risk.
Below, you can find a video of me giving a talk (~45 minutes) to my department, as required by all EEB PhD candidates in their fourth year.
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology,
srabin at princeton dot edu