Wetter environment and increased grazing reduced the area burned in northern Eurasia from 2002 to 2016

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: Min Hao, Wei, Reeves, Matthew C., Scott Baggett, L., Balkanski, Yves, Ciais, Philippe, Nordgren, Bryce L., Petkov, Alexander P., Corley, Rachel E., Mouillot, Florent, Urbanski, Shawn P., Yue, Chao
• Other Authors: Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Lab, Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Modelling the Earth Response to Multiple Anthropogenic Interactions and Dynamics (MERMAID), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ICOS-ATC (ICOS-ATC), Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro - Montpellier SupAgro, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (ISWC), Chinese Academy of Sciences Changchun Branch (CAS), European Project: 641816,H2020,H2020-SC5-2014-two-stage,CRESCENDO(2015)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; Arctic; black carbon; Climate change
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03218427; https://hal.science/hal-03218427/document; https://hal.science/hal-03218427/file/bg-18-2559-2021.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2559-2021

International audience Northern Eurasia is currently highly sensitive to climate change. Fires in this region can have significant impacts on regional air quality, radiative forcing and black carbon deposition in the Arctic which can accelerate ice melting. Using a MODIS-derived burned area dataset, we report that the total annual area burned in this region declined by 53%during the 15-year period from 2002 to 2016. Grassland fires dominated this trend, accounting for 93% of the decline in the total area burned. Grassland fires in Kazakhstan contributed 47%of the total area burned and 84%of the decline. A wetter climate and increased grazing are the principle driving forces for the decline. Our findings (1) highlight the importance of the complex interactions of climate-vegetation-land use in affecting fire activity and (2) reveal how the resulting impacts on fire activity in a relatively small region such as Kazakhstan can dominate the trends in burned areas across a much larger landscape of northern Eurasia.