Thomas W. Swetnam

CP-LUHNA Author: Fire-Southern Oscillation relations in the Southwestern United States

 

Education

University of New Mexico, B. S., 1977, General Biology, Chemistry
University of Arizona, M. S., 1983, Ph.D. 1987, Watershed Management, Dendrochronology

Major Fields & Interests

Disturbance ecology; forest ecology; dendrochronology; landscape ecology; interactions of climate, people, and ecosystems at time scales of seasons to millennia, and spatial scales of forest stands to landscapes; applications of ecosystem and environmental sciences to land management.

 

Current Academic Positions

Director & Professor of Dendrochronology, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research; joint appointments in Watershed Management, School of Renewable Natural Resources, and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology; adjunct appointment in Geography and Regional Development

Research Activities on the Colorado Plateau

Dendrochronology/Paleoenvironmental research at Bandelier National Monument, 7/93 to 6/94, National Park Service. (with Craig Allen, Chris Baisan)

Role of climate in masting, recruitment and mortality of pinyon pine, 6/94 to 6/96, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Julio Betancourt, Jerry Gottfried)

A millennial length reconstruction of climate for the middle Rio Grande Basin from tree rings, 6/94 to 5/98, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Henri Grissino-Mayer, Chris Baisan)

Regional dendroecology research, 9/94 to 9/99, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Chris Baisan, Kiyomi Morino, Rena Ann Abolt, Margot Wilkinson, Shelly Danzer, Dan Ryerson, Carl Edminster)

Fire regime reconstruction in the Southwestern borderlands, 9/94 to 8/97, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Mark Kaib, Chris Baisan)

Development of dendroclimatic reconstructions, 2/95 to 2/95, Department of Defense and US Geological Survey. (with Henri Grissino-Mayer)

Expanded fire regime studies in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, 8/95 to 1/97, National Biological Service. (with Craig Allen, Chris Baisan, Kiyomi Morino)

Fire and budworm outbreak history in wildland-urban interface areas of the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, 9/98 to 6/00, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Ann Lynch, Craig Allen)

Crown fire histories, bog fire scar histories and drought-induced ecotone shifts, 4/99 to 12/02, US Geological Survey, National Biological Service, Global Change Program. (with Craig Allen, Scott Anderson, Chris Baisan, Kiyomi Morino, Ellis Margolis)

Fire history research to assist administrative fire planning for the San Carlos Apache Reservation, 5/99 to 4/00, San Carlos Apache Nation. (with Mark Kaib, Chris Baisan)

Tree-ring assessment of tent caterpillar outbreaks in aspen stands on northern New Mexico, 9/99 to 6/00, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. (with Ann Lynch)

Fire history and restoration research in Monument Canyon Research Natural Area, Santa Fe National Forest, US Forest Service, Joint Fire Sciences Program. (with Don Falk)

Using Lightning and Fire Occurrence Data to Visualize 20th Century Fire Patterns, 7/99 to 12/00, Inter-Agency Joint Fire Sciences Program, USDA Forest Service (with Matthew Rollins)

Climatic and Human Impacts on Fire Regimes in Forests and Grasslands of the U.S. Southwest, 11/00 to 10/03, Assessing the Consequences of interactions between Human Activities and a Changing Climate, FY 2000 Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program, National Center for EnvironmentalResearch, Environmental Protection Agency (with Barbara Morehouse, Jonathan Overpeck, Steven Yool, Barron Orr, Gary Christopherson)

Recent Publications (chronological order):

Chapters in Books:

 

Swetnam, T. W. and C. H. Baisan. In press. Tree-ring reconstructions of fire and climate history in the Sierra Nevada and Southwestern United States. In: T. T. Veblen, W. Baker, G. Montenegro, and T. W. Swetnam. editors
Fire and Climatic Change in the Americas. Springer-Verlag.

Swetnam, T. W., C. H. Baisan, and J. M. Kaib. 2001. Forest fire histories in the sky islands of La Frontera. Chapter 7, pages 95-119, In G. L. Webster and C. J. Bahre eds., Changing Plant Life of La Frontera: Observations on Vegetation in the United States/Mexico Borderlands. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

K. F. Kipfmueller and T. W. Swetnam. 2001. Using dendrochronology to reconstruct the history of ecosystems. Chapter 8, pages 199-228, In D. Egan and E. A. Howell eds., Techniques for Discovering Historic Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington.

Allen, C. D., J. L. Betancourt, and T. W. Swetnam. 1998. Landscape Changes in the Southwestern United States: Techniques, Long-term Data Sets, and Trends. Pages 71-84, In T. Sisk, editor, Perspectives on the Land Use History of North America: A Context for Understanding our Changing Environment. U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR-1998-0003. 104 pp.

Allen, C. D., R. Touchan, and T. W. Swetnam
1996. Overview of fire history in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. pp.35-36, in The Jemez Mountains Region : New Mexico Geological Society, Forty-seventh Annual Field Conference, September 25-28, eds. Fraser Goff, B. S. Kues, M. A. Rogers, L. D. McFadden, and J. N. Gardner. Albuquerque, N.M

Wickman, B. E., R. R. Mason, and T. W. Swetnam
1994. pages 251-261. Searching for long-term patterns of forest insect outbreaks. In: S. R. Leather, K. F. A. Walters, N. J. Mills, and A. D. Watt, eds., Individuals, Populations and Patterns in Ecology, Intercept Press, Andover, United Kingdom.

Swetnam, T. W., and J. L. Betancourt
1992. Temporal patterns of El Niño/Southern Oscillation - wildfire patterns in the southwestern United States. pages 259-270 In Diaz H. F. and V. M. Markgraf, eds., El Niño: Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Swetnam, T. W. and 9 other authors (all listed alphabetically)
1991. Biosphere-Climate Interactions during the past 18,000 years: Towards a Global Model of the Terrestrial Biosphere. pages 25-42, In: R. S. Bradley, ed., Global Changes of the Past, Papers arising from the 1989 OIES Global Change Institute, Snowmass, Colorado, 24 July - 4 August, 1989. UCAR/Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies.

Refereed Articles:

Baisan, C. H., and T. W. Swetnam. 1997. Interactions of fire regimes and land use in the Central Rio Grande Valley. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Research Paper RM-RP-330, 20p.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D. and T. W. Swetnam. 1997. Multi-century history of wildfire in the ponderosa pine forests of El Malpais National Monument. New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources Bulletin 156:163-171.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D., T. W. Swetnam, and R. K. Adams. 1997. The rare, old-aged conifers of El Malpais – Their role in understanding climatic change in the American Southwest. New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources Bulletin 156:155-161.

Swetnam, T. W., and J. L. Betancourt. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11:3128-3147.

Swetnam, T. W., C. D. Allen, and J. L. Betancourt. 1999. Applied historical ecology: Using the past to manage for the future. Ecological Applications 9(4):1189-1206.

Kaye, M. W. and T. W. Swetnam. 1999. An assessment of fire, climate, and Apache history in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico, USA. Physical Geography 20(4):305-330.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D., and T. W. Swetnam. 2000. Century scale changes in fire regimes and climate in the Southwest. The Holocene 10(2):207-214

Markgraf, V., and T. W. Swetnam (listed alphabetically with 7 other authors). 2000. Paleoclimate reconstruction along the Pole-Equator-Pole transect of the Americas. Quaternary Sciences Reviews 19:125-140.

Speer, J. H., T. W. Swetnam, B. E. Wickman, and A. Youngblood. 2001. Changes in pandora moth outbreak dynamics during the past 622 years. Ecology 82:679–697.

Kitzberger, T., T. W. Swetnam, and T. T. Veblen. 2001. Inter-hemispheric synchrony of forest fires and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 10 (3): 315-326.

Barton, A. M., T. W. Swetnam and C. H. Baisan. 2001. Arizona pine (Pinus arizonica) stand dynamics: local and regional factors in a fire-prone madrean gallery forest of Southeast, Arizona, USA. Landscape Ecology 16 (4): 351-369.

Morgan, P., C. Hardy, T. W. Swetnam, M. G. Rollins, and D. G. Long. 2001. Mapping fire regimes across time and space: Understanding coarse and fine-scale patterns. International Journal of Wildland Fire 10 (3-4): 329-342.

Díaz, S. C., R. Touchan, and T. W. Swetnam. 2001. A tree-ring reconstruction of past precipitation in northwest Mexico. International Journal of Climatology (8): 1007-1019.

Rollins, M., T. W. Swetnam and P. Morgan. 2001. Evaluating a century of fire patterns in two Rocky Mountain wilderness areas using digital fire atlases. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31(12): 2107-2123.

Allen, C. D., M. Savage, D. A. Falk, K. F. Suckling, T. W. Swetnam, T. Schulke, P. B. Stacey, P. Morgan, M. Hoffman, and J. Klingel. In press. Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems: a broad perspective. Ecological Applications.

Proceedings Papers:

Baisan, C. H., and T. W. Swetnam. 1997. Interactions of fire regimes and land use in the Central Rio Grande Valley. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Research Paper RM-RP-330, 20p.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D. and T. W. Swetnam. 1997. Multi-century history of wildfire in the ponderosa pine forests of El Malpais National Monument. New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources Bulletin 156:163-171.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D., T. W. Swetnam, and R. K. Adams. 1997. The rare, old-aged conifers of El Malpais – Their role in understanding climatic change in the American Southwest. New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources Bulletin 156:155-161.

Swetnam, T. W., and J. L. Betancourt. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11:3128-3147.

Swetnam, T. W., C. D. Allen, and J. L. Betancourt. 1999. Applied historical ecology: Using the past to manage for the future. Ecological Applications 9(4):1189-1206.

Kaye, M. W. and T. W. Swetnam. 1999. An assessment of fire, climate, and Apache history in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico, USA. Physical Geography 20(4):305-330.

Grissino-Mayer, H. D., and T. W. Swetnam. 2000. Century scale changes in fire regimes and climate in the Southwest. The Holocene 10(2):207-214

Markgraf, V., and T. W. Swetnam (listed alphabetically with 7 other authors). 2000. Paleoclimate reconstruction along the Pole-Equator-Pole transect of the Americas. Quaternary Sciences Reviews 19:125-140.

Speer, J. H., T. W. Swetnam, B. E. Wickman, and A. Youngblood. 2001. Changes in pandora moth outbreak dynamics during the past 622 years. Ecology 82:679–697.

Kitzberger, T., T. W. Swetnam, and T. T. Veblen. 2001. Inter-hemispheric synchrony of forest fires and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 10 (3): 315-326.

Barton, A. M., T. W. Swetnam and C. H. Baisan. 2001. Arizona pine (Pinus arizonica) stand dynamics: local and regional factors in a fire-prone madrean gallery forest of Southeast, Arizona, USA. Landscape Ecology 16 (4): 351-369.

Morgan, P., C. Hardy, T. W. Swetnam, M. G. Rollins, and D. G. Long. 2001. Mapping fire regimes across time and space: Understanding coarse and fine-scale patterns. International Journal of Wildland Fire 10 (3-4): 329-342.

Díaz, S. C., R. Touchan, and T. W. Swetnam. 2001. A tree-ring reconstruction of past precipitation in northwest Mexico. International Journal of Climatology (8): 1007-1019.

Rollins, M., T. W. Swetnam and P. Morgan. 2001. Evaluating a century of fire patterns in two Rocky Mountain wilderness areas using digital fire atlases. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31(12): 2107-2123.

Allen, C. D., M. Savage, D. A. Falk, K. F. Suckling, T. W. Swetnam, T. Schulke, P. B. Stacey, P. Morgan, M. Hoffman, and J. Klingel. In press. Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems: a broad perspective. Ecological Applications.

Published Technical Reports:

Swetnam, T. W.. 1984. Radial growth analysis of western spruce budworm infested Douglas-fir trees on the Carson National Forest, New Mexico. USDA Forest Service, Southwestern Region Forest Pest Management Report R-3 84-11:38-66.

Swetnam, T. W.. 1986. Radial growth losses in Douglas-fir and white fir caused by western spruce budworm in Northern New Mexico: 1700 to 1983. USDA Forest Service, Southwestern Region Forest Pest Management Report R-3 86-2. 61 pp.

Swetnam, T. W., C. H. Baisan, P. M. Brown, and A. C. Caprio. 1989. Fire history of Rhyolite Canyon, Chiricahua National Monument. USDI National Park Service, Cooperative Park Service Studies Unit Technical Report No. 32, University of Arizona, Tucson. 38 pp.

Other Publications:

Swetnam, T. W., E. K. Sutherland, and M. A. Thompson. 1983. Comment on dating forest disturbances. Quaternary Research 19:400-401.

Swetnam, T. W.. 1988. Forest fire primeval. The World and I 3:236-241.

Allen, C. D., R. Touchan, and T. W. Swetnam. 1995. A landscape-scale fire history study supports fire management actions at Bandelier National Monument. Park Science Summer 1995, pages 18-19.

Swetnam, T. W. 1995. Forest fire peril; Old Complacency still fooling us. Op-Ed in Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Sunday, April 16, 1995.

Dean, J. S., D. M. Meko, and T. W. Swetnam, editors. 1996. Tree Rings, Environment, and Humanity, Proceedings of the International Conference, Tucson, Arizona, 17-21 May, 1994. Radiocarbon, Tucson Arizona. 889 pp.

Parsons, D. J., T. W. Swetnam, and N. L. Christensen, Jr. 1999. Introduction to Invited Feature on Historical Variability Concepts in Managing Ecosystems. Ecological Applications 9(4):1177-1178.

Swetnam, T. W.. 2000. Defusing time bombs. Op-Ed in the Albuquerque Journal, Sunday June 4, 2000.

Swetnam, T. W.
2000. Climate and the western wildfire problem. Op-Ed in the Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Sunday September 10, 2000.

Draft manuscripts in preparation, review, or revision:

Swetnam, T. W.. and B. E. Wickman. Century-scale changes in western spruce budworm and Douglas-fir tussock moth outbreaks in northeastern Oregon. In revision, Forest Science.

Ryerson, D., T. W. Swetnam, and A. M. Lynch. Tree-ring reconstruction of western spruce budworm outbreaks in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In review/revision, Canadaian Journal of Forest Research.

Rollins, M. G., P. Morgan, and T. W. Swetnam. Landscape-scale controls over 2oth century fire occurrence in two large Rocky Mountain Wilderness Areas. In review, Landscape Ecology.

T. T. Veblen, W. Baker, G. Montenegro, and T. W. Swetnam. editors. Fire and Climatic Change in the Americas. (an edited volume with 18 chapters and 25 authors), In preparation.

Fastie, C. L., E. E. Berg, and T. W. Swetnam. Response of boreal forests to lethal outbreaks of spruce bark beetles on the Kenai Penninsula, Alaska. In review/revision

Hessburg, P. F., E. E. Kuhlman, and T. W. Swetnam. Interdecadal drought and wetness patterns in the Northwest United States, 1675-2000. In review.