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With climate change increasing global temperatures, the threat of wildland fires has become more prevalent because of the dry and hot weather conditions. Knowledge of how and when wildland fires occur can help mitigate their disastrous effects. This project aims to investigate if precipitation trends in California can help scientists understand the patterns of these fires in that state. In this study, we analyzed wildland fire events in California from 2002 to 2019 and satellite remote sensing measurements of monthly precipitation from the NASA Giovanni system. Monthly precipitation anomaly time series was generated to evaluate the dry conditions in California. Compared with records of wildland fires in California collected from the National Interagency Fire Center, precipitation anomalies during fire season show remarkable connections with annual burned areas. In California, the peak fire season is from August to December, so precipitation anomaly time series of these five months in each year was generated for quantitative assessment. Regression analysis shows a moderate negative correlation between monthly precipitation anomaly during peak fire season and the area burned by wildland fires. The correlation suggests a link between precipitation and the damage caused by wildland fires in California. Further investigation into this topic may develop a method for predicting the area of wildland fire damage based on precipitation forecasting from climate models, providing decision supports for government agencies to prepare accordingly., Journal of Student-Scientists' Research, Vol. 2 (2020)

Arctic regions are experiencing faster climate change than any other region in the world. Since the Arctic plays a critical role in the carbon cycle and strongly affects the thermal state of the surrounding permafrost, it is important to understand the impact of Arctic climate changes. This study investigates the climate and ecosystem changes of the Toolik Lake area in Alaska. Satellite remote sensing measurements and long-term baseline environmental and biological data from the Environmental Data Center (EDC) of the Toolik Field Station (TFS) were used to analyze this climate change and its impact on ecosystems. Land surface temperature (LST) data from the Terra/MODIS satellite remote sensing measurements show significant warming of the Toolik lake area in the past two decades, with an increasing trend of 1.049K/decade and 1.186K/decade for daytime and nighttime LST respectively. MODIS NDVI data during the summer season also shows a significant greening trend. EDC field observations show that air temperature above the Toolik lake has an increasing trend of 0.6762K/Decade from 1988 to the present, and 0.8598K/decade from 2000 to present, indicating that there has been faster warming in the past two decades. The thawing times of the Toolik Lake and the inlet river are becoming earlier, and the freezing times of the Toolik Lake and the inlet river are becoming later, causing the ice-free period of the lake to increase significantly. These changes have considerable impacts on local and regional ecosystems; for example, the first seen times of the Arctic ground squirrel around the study area are becoming earlier, and the hibernation periods are becoming shorter, as shown from the EDC field survey data. This study confirmed the rapid warming of Arctic regions and showed changes in the Toolik Lake ecosystem caused by climate change. In future research, these methods can be applied to other regions near the Arctic to gain further insight into changes in the Arctic regions caused by climate change., Journal of Student-Scientists' Research, Vol. 2 (2020)