Spatiotemporal Distribution Characteristics of Fire Scars Further Prove the Correlation between Permafrost Swamp Wildfires and Methane Geological Emissions

Affected by global warming, methane gas released by permafrost degradation may increase the frequency of wildfires, and there are few studies on wildfires in permafrost regions and their correlation with climate and regional methane emissions. The northwestern section of the Xiaoxing’an Mountains in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability
Main Authors: Wei Shan, Lisha Qiu, Ying Guo, Chengcheng Zhang, Zhichao Xu, Shuai Liu
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022
Subjects:
permafrost degradation
wildfire
methane emissions
climate change
correlation analysis
Environmental effects of industries and plants
TD194-195
Renewable energy sources
TJ807-830
Environmental sciences
GE1-350
permafrost
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/su142214947
https://doaj.org/article/b88ca5360a2247318763dfa328949715
Description
Summary:Affected by global warming, methane gas released by permafrost degradation may increase the frequency of wildfires, and there are few studies on wildfires in permafrost regions and their correlation with climate and regional methane emissions. The northwestern section of the Xiaoxing’an Mountains in China was selected as the study area, and the spatial relationship between permafrost and spring wildfires was studied based on Landsat TM and Sentinel-2 data. Combined with monitoring data of air temperature, humidity, and methane concentration, the impact of methane emissions on spring wildfires was analyzed. The study shows that the spatial distribution of fire scars in spring is highly consistent with permafrost, and the change trend of fire scars is in line with the law of permafrost degradation. Wildfires occur intensively during the snow melting period in spring, and the temporal variation pattern is basically consistent with the methane concentration. The number of fire points was positively correlated with air temperature and methane concentration in March and April, and spring wildfires in permafrost regions are the result of a combination of rising seasonal temperatures, surface snow melting, and concentrated methane emissions. Larger areas of discontinuous permafrost are more prone to recurring wildfires.

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