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Increasing fire severity and warmer, drier postfire conditions are making forests in the western United States (West) vulnerable to ecological transformation. Yet, the relative importance of and interactions between these drivers of forest change remain unresolved, particularly over upcoming decades. Here, we assess how the interactive impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity influenced conifer regeneration after 334 wildfires, using a dataset of postfire conifer regeneration from 10,230 field plots. Our findings highlight declining regeneration capacity across the West over the past four decades for the eight dominant conifer species studied. Postfire regeneration is sensitive to high-severity fire, which limits seed availability, and postfire climate, which influences seedling establishment. In the near-term, projected differences in recruitment probability between low- and high-severity fire scenarios were larger than projected climate change impacts for most species, suggesting that reductions in fire severity, and resultant impacts on seed availability, could partially offset expected climate-driven declines in postfire regeneration. Across 40 to 42% of the study area, we project postfire conifer regeneration to be likely following low-severity but not high-severity fire under future climate scenarios (2031 to 2050). However, increasingly warm, dry climate conditions are projected to eventually outweigh the influence of fire severity and seed availability. The percent of the study area considered unlikely to experience conifer regeneration, regardless of fire severity, increased from 5% in 1981 to 2000 to 26 to 31% by mid-century, highlighting a limited time window over which management actions that reduce fire severity may effectively support postfire conifer regeneration.

This article reports findings from assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an analytical arm of the U.S. Congress. In brief, OTA found the conventional wisdom that American adolescents as a group are so healthy that they do not require health and related services is not justified. Even more disturbing, U.S. adolescents often face formidable barriers in trying to obtain health care. OTA suggested that Congress could act to 1) increase adolescents' access to health care, most effectively by supporting school- or community-based comprehensive health services specifically for adolescents, 2) restructure and reinvigorate the federal role in adolescent health, most visibly by creating an office of adolescent health in the U.S. Executive branch, and 3) improve adolescents' social environments, by providing more support to the families of adolescents, limiting adolescents' access to firearms, supporting the expansion of recreational opportunities for adolescents, and further supporting opportunties for community service. Congressional actions taken since the release of OTA's report are summarized. (J Sch Health. 1992;62(5):167-174), In April 1991, the U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) completed a three-year assessment of adolescent health and health services.[1-3] OTA found the conventional wisdom that American adolescents as [...]

Abstract: Forest resilience to climate change is a global concern given the potential effects of increased disturbance activity, warming temperatures and increased moisture stress on plants. We used a multi‐regional dataset of 1485 sites across 52 wildfires from the US Rocky Mountains to ask if and how changing climate over the last several decades impacted post‐fire tree regeneration, a key indicator of forest resilience. Results highlight significant decreases in tree regeneration in the 21st century. Annual moisture deficits were significantly greater from 2000 to 2015 as compared to 1985–1999, suggesting increasingly unfavourable post‐fire growing conditions, corresponding to significantly lower seedling densities and increased regeneration failure. Dry forests that already occur at the edge of their climatic tolerance are most prone to conversion to non‐forests after wildfires. Major climate‐induced reduction in forest density and extent has important consequences for a myriad of ecosystem services now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]