A New Picture of Fire Extent, Variability, and Drought Interaction in Prescribed Fire Landscapes: Insights From Florida Government Records

Nowell, H.; Holmes, Christopher D.; Robertson, Kevin; Teske, Casey; Hiers, J. Kevin

doi:10.1029/2018gl078679

Cited by 50 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 79 publications

(101 reference statements)

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“…There is an increasing concern about loss of forest and ecosystem services due to extreme drought occurrence in the Amazon basin. Deforestation, fire and climate change have been reported as primary agents altering hydrological cycle in the region [44,45,65,66]. Such interactions among anthropogenic pressures, climate changes, and forest responses present potential positive feedbacks that may increase forest degradation and loss [67].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme Drought Events over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate

Garcia¹,

Libonati²,

Nunes³

2018

Water

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The Amazon basin has experienced severe drought events for centuries, mainly associated with climate variability connected to tropical North Atlantic and Pacific sea surface temperature anomalous warming. Recently, these events are becoming more frequent, more intense and widespread. Because of the Amazon droughts environmental and socioeconomic impacts, there is an increased demand for understanding the characteristics of such extreme events in the region. In that regard, regional models instead of the general circulation models provide a promising strategy to generate more detailed climate information of extreme events, seeking better representation of physical processes. Due to uneven spatial distribution and gaps found in station data in tropical South America, and the need of more refined climate assessment in those regions, satellite-enhanced regional downscaling for applied studies (SRDAS) is used in the reconstruction of South American hydroclimate, with hourly to monthly outputs from January 1998. Accordingly, this research focuses on the analyses of recent extreme drought events in the years of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon Basin, using the SRDAS monthly means of near-surface temperature and relative humidity, precipitation and vertically integrated soil moisture fields. Results from this analysis corroborate spatial and temporal patterns found in previous studies on extreme drought events in the region, displaying the distinctive features of the 2005 and 2010 drought events. 4 of 16 moisture, and relative humidity, and with the highest temperature anomalies, considering the lag between the responses of the atmosphere and the surface conditions. Water 2017, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 16 drought-patterns along, taking into special attention the droughts of 2005 and 2010, with the spatial distribution of the anomalies computed from the monthly means over the Amazon basin. We only analyze the months with the lowest anomalies in precipitation, soil moisture, and relative humidity, and with the highest temperature anomalies, considering the lag between the responses of the atmosphere and the surface conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme Drought Events over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate

Garcia¹,

Libonati²,

Nunes³

2018

Water

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“…Carbon dioxide mixing ratios were measured by a fast greenhouse gas analyser (FGGA; Los Gatos Research Inc.) adapted for aircraft use (O'Shea et al, 2013). The total accuracy of this measurement is estimated at ±0.17 ppm.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The vertical distribution of biomass burning pollution over tropical South America from aircraft in situ measurements during SAMBBA

et al. 2019

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Abstract. We examine processes driving the vertical distribution of biomass burning pollution following an integrated analysis of over 200 pollutant and meteorological profiles measured in situ during the South AMerican Biomass Burning Analysis (SAMBBA) field experiment. This study will aid future work examining the impact of biomass burning on weather, climate and air quality. During the dry season there were significant contrasts in the composition and vertical distribution of haze between western and eastern regions of tropical South America. Owing to an active or residual convective mixing layer, the aerosol abundance was similar from the surface to ∼1.5 km in the west and ∼3 km in the east. Black carbon mass loadings were double as much in the east (1.7 µg m−3) than the west (0.85 µg m−3), but aerosol scattering coefficients at 550 nm were similar (∼120 Mm−1), as too were CO near-surface concentrations (310–340 ppb). We attribute these contrasts to the more flaming combustion of Cerrado fires in the east and more smouldering combustion of deforestation and pasture fires in the west. Horizontal wind shear was important in inhibiting mixed layer growth and plume rise, in addition to advecting pollutants from the Cerrado regions into the remote tropical forest of central Amazonia. Thin layers above the mixing layer indicate the roles of both plume injection and shallow moist convection in delivering pollution to the lower free troposphere. However, detrainment of large smoke plumes into the upper free troposphere was very infrequently observed. Our results reiterate that thermodynamics control the pollutant vertical distribution and thus point to the need for correct model representation so that the spatial distribution and vertical structure of biomass burning smoke is captured. We observed an increase of aerosol abundance relative to CO with altitude both in the background haze and plume enhancement ratios. It is unlikely associated with thermodynamic partitioning, aerosol deposition or local non-fire sources. We speculate it may be linked to long-range transport from West Africa or fire combustion efficiency coupled to plume injection height. Further enquiry is required to explain the phenomenon and explore impacts on regional climate and air quality.

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“…(mostly prescribed and agricultural burns) US (Brey et al 2018). The southeastern US, in particular, is of interest to the public health and policy communities because a prevalence of agricultural burning there, which dominates burned surface area (Nowell et al 2018), may have a stronger impact on low altitude air quality in a relative sense than large wildfires that inject higher into the air. We also analyse the western and eastern US separately because, in the east, the magnitude of fire emissions is lower and BC, in particular, is dominated by anthropogenic sources.…”

Section: How Emissions Uncertainty Impacts Mass Concentrations and Aodmentioning

confidence: 99%

How emissions uncertainty influences the distribution and radiative impacts of smoke from fires in North America

Carter¹,

Heald²,

Jimenez³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Fires and the aerosols that they emit impact air quality, health, and climate, but the abundance and properties of carbonaceous aerosol (both black carbon and organic carbon) from biomass burning (BB) remain uncertain and poorly constrained. We aim to quantify the uncertainties associated with fire emissions and their air quality and radiative impacts from underlying dry matter consumed and emissions factors. To explore this, we compare model simulations from a global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, driven by a variety of fire emission inventories with surface and airborne observations of black carbon (BC) and organic aerosol (OA) concentrations and satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD). We focus on two fire detection/burned area-based (FD/BA) inventories using burned area and active fire counts, respectively: the Global Fire Emissions Database version 4 (GFED4s) with small fires and the Fire INventory from NCAR version 1.5 (FINN1.5) and two fire radiative power (FRP)-based approaches: the Quick Fire Emission Dataset version 2.4 (QFED2.4) and the Global Fire Assimilation System version 1.2 (GFAS1.2). We show that, across the inventories, emissions of BB aerosol (BBA) differ by a factor of 4 to 7 over North America and that dry matter differences, not emissions factors, drive this spread. We find that simulations driven by QFED2.4 generally overestimate BC and, to a lesser extent, OA concentrations observations from two fire-influenced aircraft campaigns in North America (ARCTAS and DC3) and from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network, while simulations driven by FINN1.5 substantially underestimate concentrations. The GFED4s and GFAS1.2-driven simulations provide the best agreement with OA and BC mass concentrations at the surface (IMPROVE), BC observed aloft (DC3 and ARCTAS), and AOD observed by MODIS over North America. We also show that a sensitivity simulation including an enhanced source of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from fires based on the NOAA Fire Lab 2016 experiments produces substantial additional OA; however, the spread in the primary emissions estimates implies that this magnitude of SOA cannot be either confirmed or ruled out when comparing the simulations against the observations explored here. Given the substantial uncertainty in fire emissions, as represented by these four emission inventories, we find a sizeable range in BBA population-weighted exposure over Canada and the contiguous United States (0.5 to 1.6&#8201;&#181;g&#8201;m&#8722;3). We also show that the range in the estimated global direct radiative effect of carbonaceous aerosol from fires (&#8722;0.11 to &#8722;0.048&#8201;W&#8201;m&#8722;2) is large and comparable to the direct radiative forcing of OA (&#8722;0.09&#8201;W&#8201;m&#8722;2) estimated in AR5. Our analysis suggests that fire emissions uncertainty challenges our ability to accurately characterize the impact of smoke on air quality and climate.

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A New Picture of Fire Extent, Variability, and Drought Interaction in Prescribed Fire Landscapes: Insights From Florida Government Records

Cited by 50 publications

References 79 publications

Extreme Drought Events over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate

Extreme Drought Events over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate

The vertical distribution of biomass burning pollution over tropical South America from aircraft in situ measurements during SAMBBA

How emissions uncertainty influences the distribution and radiative impacts of smoke from fires in North America

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