Charles Bullard Lectures | Megafires in the Far North: From Global Impacts to Local Solutions (Cambridge)

Dr. Michelle Mack, Regents’ Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University, and the lead PI of the Bonanza Creek LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research Program) located in the Alaskan boreal forest.  She is an ecosystem ecologist who studies the impacts of climate and disturbances, such as wildfire and abrupt permafrost thaw, on the dynamics of Arctic and boreal ecosystems. She is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union and has contributed to scientific reports for policy makers and the public, such as the US National Climate Assessment.

Megafires in the Far North: From Global Impacts to Local Solutions 

Climate warming is causing wildfire activity to increase in boreal forests and arctic tundra of the Far North. Fires are burning more deeply into thick organic soils and destabilizing permafrost, releasing carbon to the atmosphere that has been stored for centuries to millennia. At a global scale, these wildfires are impacting people through production of smoke and the release of greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate warming. At a local scale, increasing wildfire activity is creating new risks and vulnerabilities for local people that depend upon these ecosystems for their wellbeing.  In this talk, Dr. Mack will discuss the ecological mechanisms that drive this positive feedback between wildfire and climate warming.  She will explore how ecosystems and local human communities in Alaska are responding to increasing wildfire, and how we can employ emerging ideas in forest and fire management to reduce fire activity and promote human wellbeing.

Dr. Mack will present two public lectures as part of Harvard’s annual Charles Bullard Lecture Series— in Cambridge on the evening of October 8, and in Petersham (and on Zoom) on the morning of October 9.