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Global rise in forest fire emissions linked to climate change in the extratropics
,
Sander Veraverbeke ,
Niels Andela ,
Stefan Doerr ,
Crystal Kolden ,
Guilherme Mataveli ,
M Lucrecia Pettinari ,
Corinne Le Quéré ,
Thais M Rosan ,
Guido R van der Werf ,
Dave van Wees ,
John T Abatzoglou
Science, Volume: 386, Issue: 6719, Start page: eadl5889
Swansea University Author:
Stefan Doerr
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PDF | Accepted Manuscript
Author accepted manuscript document released under the terms of a Creative Commons CC BY licence using the Swansea University Research Publications Policy (rights retention).
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DOI (Published version): 10.1126/science.adl5889
Abstract
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 sensitivitie...
| Published in: | Science |
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| ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
| Published: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2024
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68121 |
| Abstract: |
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. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
This work was funded by the following: UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant NE/V01417X/1 (M.W.J.); European Commission (E.C.) Horizon 2020 (H2020) project VERIFY grant 776810 (M.W.J.); São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grants 2019/25701-8, 2020/15230-5 and 2023/03206-0 (G.M.); EC H2020 project FirEURisk grant no. 101003890 (S.H.D., M.L.P.); NERC project UK-FDRS grant NE/T003553/1 (S.H.D.); European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) FireCCI project contract no. 4000126706/19/I-NB (MLP); Royal Society grant RP\R1\191063 (C.L.Q.); National Science Foundation grant OAI-2019762 (JTA). |
| Issue: |
6719 |
| Start Page: |
eadl5889 |