PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 4: Tropical cyclone disturbance and forest dynamics at multiple temporal scales: results from long-term studies in the new and old worlds
Organizer(s): T Lin, H King, and SP Hamburg
Monday, August 8, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 511 B, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Temporal patterns of hurricane disturbance at Harvard Forest and Luquillo LTER sites.

Boose, Emery^*,1, ¹ Harvard Forest, Petersham, MA

ABSTRACT- The impacts of historical hurricanes can often be reconstructed using a combination of historical research, wind damage analysis, and meteorological modeling. For sites in the New World this approach can shed light on spatial and temporal patterns of hurricane disturbance over a period of 300-500 years since European settlement. Such a long-term perspective is essential for understanding hurricane impacts on forests, given the life span of trees and the rarity of the most intense storms. At the Harvard Forest in central New England, where F2 wind damage on the Fujita scale occurs about once a century, trees on exposed sites are likely to experience some damage in their lifetimes, and the maximum size and lifespan of susceptible species may be limited. At the Luquillo Experimental Forest in northeastern Puerto Rico, where F2 damage occurs about every 20 years and F3 damage about every 50 years, trees on exposed sites are likely to experience significant damage in their lifetimes, and the maximum lifespan of many species and possibly the distribution of some species may be limited. Temporal patterns of wind damage at both sites show similarities on seasonal, annual, decadal, and centennial scales. Wind disturbance is significantly greater at Luquillo because of greater hurricane frequency, maximum intensity, and storm duration. Effects of individual storms may be visible longer at Harvard Forest because of slower growth and decomposition rates.

Key words: hurricane, modeling, temporal patterns, wind damage