Global rise in forest fire emissions linked to climate change in the extratropics
Climate change increases fire-favorable weather in forests, but fire trends are also affected by multiple other controlling factors that are difficult to untangle. We use machine learning to systematically group forest ecoregions into 12 global forest pyromes, with each showing distinct sensitivities to climatic, human, and vegetation controls. This delineation revealed that rapidly increasing forest fire emissions in extratropical pyromes, linked to climate change, offset declining emissions in tropical pyromes during 2001 to 2023. Annual emissions tripled in one extratropical pyrome due to increases in fire-favorable weather, compounded by increased forest cover and productivity. This contributed to a 60% increase in forest fire carbon emissions from forest ecoregions globally. Our results highlight the increasing vulnerability of forests and their carbon stocks to fire disturbance under climate change.
Authors
- John T. Abatzoglou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7599-9750)
- Corinne Le Quéré (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2319-0452)
- Stefan H. Doerr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8700-9002)
- Dave van Wees (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5565-7155)
- Guilherme Mataveli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4645-0117)
- Sander Veraverbeke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1362-5125)
- Matthew W. Jones (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3480-7980)
- Guido R. van der Werf (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9042-8630)
- M. Lucrecia Pettinari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7472-4373)
- Niels Andela (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8241-6143)
- Crystal A. Kolden (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7093-4552)
- Thais M. Rosan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0155-1739)
Institutions
- University of East Anglia (GB)
- University of California, Merced (US)
- Universidad de Alcalá (ES)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Swansea University (GB)
- Tyndall Centre (GB)
- MAST Carbon (United Kingdom) (GB)
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (BR)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2024-10-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl5889
- Citations
- 129
- Primary Topic
- Fire effects on ecosystems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 36.46
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- European Space Agency
- European Commission
- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Natural Environment Research Council