Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia
Wildfires are a natural and important element in the functioning of boreal forests. However, in some years, fires with extreme spread and severity occur. Such severe fires can degrade the forest, affect human values, emit huge amounts of carbon and aerosols and alter the land surface albedo. Usually...
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ftleibnizopen:oai:oai.leibnizopen.de:SEqjqIgBdbrxVwz6Ogg5 2023-07-02T03:33:26+02:00 Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia Forkel, Matthias Thonicke, Kirsten Beer, Christian Cramer, Wolfgang Bartalev, Sergey Schmullius, Christiane 2012 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.34657/270 https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/3839 eng eng Bristol : IOP Publishing CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Environmental Research Letters, Volume 7, Issue 4 Climate change Fire hazards Fires Geologic models Moisture Permafrost Thermodynamics Vegetation 500 article Text 2012 ftleibnizopen https://doi.org/10.34657/270 2023-06-11T23:13:17Z Wildfires are a natural and important element in the functioning of boreal forests. However, in some years, fires with extreme spread and severity occur. Such severe fires can degrade the forest, affect human values, emit huge amounts of carbon and aerosols and alter the land surface albedo. Usually, wind, slope and dry air conditions have been recognized as factors determining fire spread. Here we identify surface moisture as an additional important driving factor for the evolution of extreme fire events in the Baikal region. An area of 127 000 km2 burned in this region in 2003, a large part of it in regions underlain by permafrost. Analyses of satellite data for 2002–2009 indicate that previous-summer surface moisture is a better predictor for burned area than precipitation anomalies or fire weather indices for larch forests with continuous permafrost. Our analysis advances the understanding of complex interactions between the atmosphere, vegetation and soil, and how coupled mechanisms can lead to extreme events. These findings emphasize the importance of a mechanistic coupling of soil thermodynamics, hydrology, vegetation functioning, and fire activity in Earth system models for projecting climate change impacts over the next century. publishedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper permafrost Siberia LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) |
op_collection_id |
ftleibnizopen |
language |
English |
topic |
Climate change Fire hazards Fires Geologic models Moisture Permafrost Thermodynamics Vegetation 500 |
spellingShingle |
Climate change Fire hazards Fires Geologic models Moisture Permafrost Thermodynamics Vegetation 500 Forkel, Matthias Thonicke, Kirsten Beer, Christian Cramer, Wolfgang Bartalev, Sergey Schmullius, Christiane Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
topic_facet |
Climate change Fire hazards Fires Geologic models Moisture Permafrost Thermodynamics Vegetation 500 |
description |
Wildfires are a natural and important element in the functioning of boreal forests. However, in some years, fires with extreme spread and severity occur. Such severe fires can degrade the forest, affect human values, emit huge amounts of carbon and aerosols and alter the land surface albedo. Usually, wind, slope and dry air conditions have been recognized as factors determining fire spread. Here we identify surface moisture as an additional important driving factor for the evolution of extreme fire events in the Baikal region. An area of 127 000 km2 burned in this region in 2003, a large part of it in regions underlain by permafrost. Analyses of satellite data for 2002–2009 indicate that previous-summer surface moisture is a better predictor for burned area than precipitation anomalies or fire weather indices for larch forests with continuous permafrost. Our analysis advances the understanding of complex interactions between the atmosphere, vegetation and soil, and how coupled mechanisms can lead to extreme events. These findings emphasize the importance of a mechanistic coupling of soil thermodynamics, hydrology, vegetation functioning, and fire activity in Earth system models for projecting climate change impacts over the next century. publishedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Forkel, Matthias Thonicke, Kirsten Beer, Christian Cramer, Wolfgang Bartalev, Sergey Schmullius, Christiane |
author_facet |
Forkel, Matthias Thonicke, Kirsten Beer, Christian Cramer, Wolfgang Bartalev, Sergey Schmullius, Christiane |
author_sort |
Forkel, Matthias |
title |
Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
title_short |
Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
title_full |
Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
title_fullStr |
Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of Siberia |
title_sort |
extreme fire events are related to previous-year surface moisture conditions in permafrost-underlain larch forests of siberia |
publisher |
Bristol : IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.34657/270 https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/3839 |
genre |
permafrost Siberia |
genre_facet |
permafrost Siberia |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 7, Issue 4 |
op_rights |
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.34657/270 |
_version_ |
1770273387074027520 |