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Andela N, Morton DC, Giglio L, Chen Y, van der Werf GR, Kasibhatla PS, DeFries RS, Collatz GJ, Hantson S, Kloster S, Bachelet D, Forrest M, Lasslop G, Li F, Mangeon S, Melton JR, Yue C, Randerson JT. A human-driven decline in global burned area. Science 2018; 356:1356-1362. [PMID: 28663495 DOI: 10.1126/science.aal4108] [Citation(s) in RCA: 211] [Impact Index Per Article: 35.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Accepted: 06/02/2017] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Fire is an essential Earth system process that alters ecosystem and atmospheric composition. Here we assessed long-term fire trends using multiple satellite data sets. We found that global burned area declined by 24.3 ± 8.8% over the past 18 years. The estimated decrease in burned area remained robust after adjusting for precipitation variability and was largest in savannas. Agricultural expansion and intensification were primary drivers of declining fire activity. Fewer and smaller fires reduced aerosol concentrations, modified vegetation structure, and increased the magnitude of the terrestrial carbon sink. Fire models were unable to reproduce the pattern and magnitude of observed declines, suggesting that they may overestimate fire emissions in future projections. Using economic and demographic variables, we developed a conceptual model for predicting fire in human-dominated landscapes.
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Affiliation(s)
- N Andela
- Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. .,Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - D C Morton
- Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
| | - L Giglio
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
| | - Y Chen
- Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - G R van der Werf
- Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - P S Kasibhatla
- Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - R S DeFries
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - G J Collatz
- Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
| | - S Hantson
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research, 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
| | - S Kloster
- Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20164 Hamburg, Germany
| | - D Bachelet
- Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
| | - M Forrest
- Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Institute (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - G Lasslop
- Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20164 Hamburg, Germany
| | - F Li
- International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - S Mangeon
- Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - J R Melton
- Climate Research Division, Environment Canada, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
| | - C Yue
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement-Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint Quentin, Université Paris-Saclay, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - J T Randerson
- Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
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van der Werf GR, Randerson JT, Giglio L, Collatz GJ, Mu M, Kasibhatla PS, Morton DC, DeFries RS, Jin Y, van Leeuwen TT. Global fire emissions and the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural, and peat fires (1997–2009). Atmos Chem Phys 2010. [PMID: 0 DOI: 10.5194/acp-10-11707-2010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 270] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
Abstract. New burned area datasets and top-down constraints from atmospheric concentration measurements of pyrogenic gases have decreased the large uncertainty in fire emissions estimates. However, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural waste, and peat fires to total global fire emissions. Here we used a revised version of the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford-Approach (CASA) biogeochemical model and improved satellite-derived estimates of area burned, fire activity, and plant productivity to calculate fire emissions for the 1997–2009 period on a 0.5° spatial resolution with a monthly time step. For November 2000 onwards, estimates were based on burned area, active fire detections, and plant productivity from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor. For the partitioning we focused on the MODIS era. We used maps of burned area derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) and Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) active fire data prior to MODIS (1997–2000) and estimates of plant productivity derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations during the same period. Average global fire carbon emissions according to this version 3 of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED3) were 2.0 Pg C year−1 with significant interannual variability during 1997–2001 (2.8 Pg C year−1 in 1998 and 1.6 Pg C year−1 in 2001). Globally, emissions during 2002–2007 were relatively constant (around 2.1 Pg C year−1) before declining in 2008 (1.7 Pg C year−1) and 2009 (1.5 Pg C year−1) partly due to lower deforestation fire emissions in South America and tropical Asia. On a regional basis, emissions were highly variable during 2002–2007 (e.g., boreal Asia, South America, and Indonesia), but these regional differences canceled out at a global level. During the MODIS era (2001–2009), most carbon emissions were from fires in grasslands and savannas (44%) with smaller contributions from tropical deforestation and degradation fires (20%), woodland fires (mostly confined to the tropics, 16%), forest fires (mostly in the extratropics, 15%), agricultural waste burning (3%), and tropical peat fires (3%). The contribution from agricultural waste fires was likely a lower bound because our approach for measuring burned area could not detect all of these relatively small fires. Total carbon emissions were on average 13% lower than in our previous (GFED2) work. For reduced trace gases such as CO and CH4, deforestation, degradation, and peat fires were more important contributors because of higher emissions of reduced trace gases per unit carbon combusted compared to savanna fires. Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, degradation, and peatland fires were on average 0.5 Pg C year−1. The carbon emissions from these fires may not be balanced by regrowth following fire. Our results provide the first global assessment of the contribution of different sources to total global fire emissions for the past decade, and supply the community with an improved 13-year fire emissions time series.
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Gleick PH, Adams RM, Amasino RM, Anders E, Anderson DJ, Anderson WW, Anselin LE, Arroyo MK, Asfaw B, Ayala FJ, Bax A, Bebbington AJ, Bell G, Bennett MVL, Bennetzen JL, Berenbaum MR, Berlin OB, Bjorkman PJ, Blackburn E, Blamont JE, Botchan MR, Boyer JS, Boyle EA, Branton D, Briggs SP, Briggs WR, Brill WJ, Britten RJ, Broecker WS, Brown JH, Brown PO, Brunger AT, Cairns J, Canfield DE, Carpenter SR, Carrington JC, Cashmore AR, Castilla JC, Cazenave A, Chapin FS, Ciechanover AJ, Clapham DE, Clark WC, Clayton RN, Coe MD, Conwell EM, Cowling EB, Cowling RM, Cox CS, Croteau RB, Crothers DM, Crutzen PJ, Daily GC, Dalrymple GB, Dangl JL, Darst SA, Davies DR, Davis MB, De Camilli PV, Dean C, DeFries RS, Deisenhofer J, Delmer DP, DeLong EF, DeRosier DJ, Diener TO, Dirzo R, Dixon JE, Donoghue MJ, Doolittle RF, Dunne T, Ehrlich PR, Eisenstadt SN, Eisner T, Emanuel KA, Englander SW, Ernst WG, Falkowski PG, Feher G, Ferejohn JA, Fersht A, Fischer EH, Fischer R, Flannery KV, Frank J, Frey PA, Fridovich I, Frieden C, Futuyma DJ, Gardner WR, Garrett CJR, Gilbert W, Goldberg RB, Goodenough WH, Goodman CS, Goodman M, Greengard P, Hake S, Hammel G, Hanson S, Harrison SC, Hart SR, Hartl DL, Haselkorn R, Hawkes K, Hayes JM, Hille B, Hökfelt T, House JS, Hout M, Hunten DM, Izquierdo IA, Jagendorf AT, Janzen DH, Jeanloz R, Jencks CS, Jury WA, Kaback HR, Kailath T, Kay P, Kay SA, Kennedy D, Kerr A, Kessler RC, Khush GS, Kieffer SW, Kirch PV, Kirk K, Kivelson MG, Klinman JP, Klug A, Knopoff L, Kornberg H, Kutzbach JE, Lagarias JC, Lambeck K, Landy A, Langmuir CH, Larkins BA, Le Pichon XT, Lenski RE, Leopold EB, Levin SA, Levitt M, Likens GE, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Lorand L, Lovejoy CO, Lynch M, Mabogunje AL, Malone TF, Manabe S, Marcus J, Massey DS, McWilliams JC, Medina E, Melosh HJ, Meltzer DJ, Michener CD, Miles EL, Mooney HA, Moore PB, Morel FMM, Mosley-Thompson ES, Moss B, Munk WH, Myers N, Nair GB, Nathans J, Nester EW, Nicoll RA, Novick RP, O'Connell JF, Olsen PE, Opdyke ND, Oster GF, Ostrom E, Pace NR, Paine RT, Palmiter RD, Pedlosky J, Petsko GA, Pettengill GH, Philander SG, Piperno DR, Pollard TD, Price PB, Reichard PA, Reskin BF, Ricklefs RE, Rivest RL, Roberts JD, Romney AK, Rossmann MG, Russell DW, Rutter WJ, Sabloff JA, Sagdeev RZ, Sahlins MD, Salmond A, Sanes JR, Schekman R, Schellnhuber J, Schindler DW, Schmitt J, Schneider SH, Schramm VL, Sederoff RR, Shatz CJ, Sherman F, Sidman RL, Sieh K, Simons EL, Singer BH, Singer MF, Skyrms B, Sleep NH, Smith BD, Snyder SH, Sokal RR, Spencer CS, Steitz TA, Strier KB, Südhof TC, Taylor SS, Terborgh J, Thomas DH, Thompson LG, Tjian RT, Turner MG, Uyeda S, Valentine JW, Valentine JS, Van Etten JL, van Holde KE, Vaughan M, Verba S, von Hippel PH, Wake DB, Walker A, Walker JE, Watson EB, Watson PJ, Weigel D, Wessler SR, West-Eberhard MJ, White TD, Wilson WJ, Wolfenden RV, Wood JA, Woodwell GM, Wright HE, Wu C, Wunsch C, Zoback ML. Climate change and the integrity of science. Science 2010; 328:689-90. [PMID: 20448167 DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.689] [Citation(s) in RCA: 102] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
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