Determining the sensitivity of grassland area burned to climate variation in Xilingol, China, with an autoregressive distributed lag approach

Abstract

We examined the relationship between climate variables and grassland area burned in Xilingol, China, from 2001 to 2014 using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, and describe the application of this econometric method to studies of climate influences on wildland fire. We show that there is a stationary linear combination of non-stationary climate time series (cointegration) that can be used to reliably estimate the influence of different climate signals on area burned. Our model shows a strong relationship between maximum temperature and grassland area burned. Mean monthly wind speed and monthly hours of sunlight were also strongly associated with area burned, whereas minimum temperature and precipitation were not. Some climate variables like wind speed had significant immediate effects on area burned, the strength of which varied over the 2001–14 observation period (in econometrics terms, a ‘short-run’ effect). The relationship between temperature and area burned exhibited a steady-state or ‘long-run’ relationship. We analysed three different periods (2001–05, 2006–10 and 2011–14) to illustrate how the effects of climate on area burned vary over time. These results should be helpful in estimating the potential impact of changing climate on the eastern Eurasian Steppe.

Predicting the influence of climate on grassland area burned in Xilingol, China with dynamic simulations of autoregressive distributed lag models

“…This study demonstrates that in the long-run, grassland area burned in Xilingol is more sensitive to changes in wind speed and temperature than other climate variables [10,15,36]. Past…”

“…Understanding how climate influences fire in grasslands is challenging because of complex interactions between climate parameters, ignitions, and past fire history [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Previous research has demonstrated complex relationships between fire activity and climate variability in the extensive grasslands of Xilingol in northern China [14,15]. Fire in this region potentially creates feedbacks between climate and fire occurrence both by climate forcing related to carbon emissions from fires and changes in flammability related to post-fire succession [16,17].…”

Seasonal weather and climate prediction over area burned in grasslands of northeast China

“…Increased grazing constrains grassland burning leading to an "area burned deficit". Otherwise, the system is highly responsive to high-speed seasonal winds with low relative humidity, quickly drying fuel, and increasing the potential for extensive grassland fires across the region 28,42 .…”

“…Therefore, fire season fuel moisture levels are accordingly unresponsive to precipitation variation. Third, the vast majority of fires in Xilingol originate from human activities 23,28,42 . These ignitions, and wind speeds and temperatures coincident with them, rather than fuel conditioning, may explain burned grassland extent.…”

“…Grassland covers 70% of the total area of 2.03 × 10 7 ha. Grazing has been the extensive land use in the Xilingol League where climate variations and other factors, including fire-generating human-activities, are the principal contributing factors to increased incidence of grassland burning 28 . Heterogeneous climate and human activities contribute to a complex burn matrix throughout Xilingol.…”