Influence of Fire on the Carbon Cycle and Climate

Abstract

Purpose of Review: Understanding of how fire affects the carbon cycle and climate is crucial for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. As those are often based on Earth system model simulations, we identify recent progress and research needs that can improve the model representation of fire and its impacts. Recent Findings New constraints of fire effects on the carbon cycle and climate are provided by the quantification of the carbon ages and effects of vegetation types and traits. For global scale modelling the low understanding of the human-fire relationship is limiting. Summary Recent developments allow improvements in Earth system models with respect to the influences of vegetation on climate, peatland burning and the pyrogenic carbon cycle. Better understanding of human influences is required. Given the impacts of fire on carbon storage and climate, thorough understanding of the effects of fire in the Earth system is crucial to support climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Fires prime terrestrial organic carbon for riverine export to the global oceans

“…Environmental change and BC export. Over the past 20 years, a 24% net reduction in global burned area has been driven chiefly by the conversion of savannahs to agricultural land [70][71][72] . Nonetheless, burned area has increased in forested regions with high BC production rates per unit area, and thus global rates of BC production by landscape fires showed no trend in the past two decades 16 .…”

Global ecosystems and fire: Multi‐model assessment of fire‐induced tree‐cover and carbon storage reduction

“…Moreover, observations regarding the effects of fire on soil carbon are limited and the process is not well understood and represented in models (Lasslop, Coppola, Voulgarakis, Yue, & Veraverbeke, 2019).…”

Pre-Columbian Fire Management Linked to Refractory Black Carbon Emissions in the Amazon

“…Today, rBC emissions are compounded by anthropogenic climate change, which is increasing the frequency and severity of droughts in the Amazon [10], resulting in more frequent and severe wildfires in this region [2]. These factors can contribute to positive feedbacks that threaten to convert the Amazon from a net-carbon sink to a net-carbon source, further impacting the global carbon budget [87]. In addition, under increased CO 2 emission scenarios, climate model experiments demonstrate the Amazon Basin will likely experience substantial declines in regional-scale annual rainfall [88], coupled with increased occurrence of climate extremes [89].…”