Wildfire responses to abrupt climate change in North America

It is widely accepted, based on data from the last few decades and on model simulations, that anthropogenic climate change will cause increased fire activity. However, less attention has been paid to the relationship between abrupt climate changes and heightened fire activity in the paleorecord. We use 35 charcoal and pollen records to assess how fire regimes in North America changed during the last glacial–interglacial transition (15 to 10 ka), a time of large and rapid climate changes. We also test the hypothesis that a comet impact initiated continental-scale wildfires at 12.9 ka; the data do not support this idea, nor are continent-wide fires indicated at any time during deglaciation. There are, however, clear links between large climate changes and fire activity. Biomass burning gradually increased from the glacial period to the beginning of the Younger Dryas. Although there are changes in biomass burning during the Younger Dryas, there is no systematic trend. There is a further increase in biomass burning after the Younger Dryas. Intervals of rapid climate change at 13.9, 13.2, and 11.7 ka are marked by large increases in fire activity. The timing of changes in fire is not coincident with changes in human population density or the timing of the extinction of the megafauna. Although these factors could have contributed to fire-regime changes at individual sites or at specific times, the charcoal data indicate an important role for climate, and particularly rapid climate change, in determining broad-scale levels of fire activity.

Effect of drainage and wildfire on peat hydrophysical properties

Consecutive multiple disturbances to northern peatlands can dramatically impact peat hydrophysical properties. We examine the impact of a double disturbance (drainage and wildfire) on the hydrophysical and moisture retention properties of peat, a key regulator of peatland ecohydrological resilience, and compare this with the impact to each individual disturbance (drainage and wildfire). The compound effect of drainage and wildfire resulted in a shift of the surface datum down the peat profile, revealing denser peat. Less-dense near-surface peats that regulate water-table position and near-surface moisture content, both favourable to Sphagnum recolonization, were lost. At a drained peatland that was then subject to wildfire, peat bulk density increased by 14.1%, von Post humification class increased by two categories and water retention increased by 15.6%, compared with an adjacent burned but undrained (single disturbance) portion of the fen. We discuss the key hydrophysical metrics of peatland vulnerability and outline how they are affected by the isolated impacts of drainage and wildfire, as well as their combined effects. We demonstrate that multiple peatland disturbances have likely led to an increase in hydrological limitations to Sphagnum recovery, which may impact peatland ecohydrological resilience.

Enhanced Australian carbon sink despite increased wildfire during the 21st century

Climate projections show Australia becoming significantly warmer during the 21st century, and precipitation decreasing over much of the continent. Such changes are conventionally considered to increase wildfire risk. Nevertheless, we show that burnt area increases in southern Australia, but decreases in northern Australia. Overall the projected increase in fire is small (0.72–1.31% of land area, depending on the climate scenario used), and does not cause a decrease in carbon storage. In fact, carbon storage increases by 3.7–5.6 Pg C (depending on the climate scenario used). Using a process-based model of vegetation dynamics, vegetation–fire interactions and carbon cycling, we show increased fire promotes a shift to more fire-adapted trees in wooded areas and their encroachment into grasslands, with an overall increase in forested area of 3.9–11.9%. Both changes increase carbon uptake and storage. The increase in woody vegetation increases the amount of coarse litter, which decays more slowly than fine litter hence leading to a relative reduction in overall heterotrophic respiration, further reducing carbon losses. Direct CO2 effects increase woody cover, water-use efficiency and productivity, such that carbon storage is increased by 8.5–14.8 Pg C compared to simulations in which CO2 is held constant at modern values. CO2 effects tend to increase burnt area, fire fluxes and therefore carbon losses in arid areas, but increase vegetation density and reduce burnt area in wooded areas.

Anticipating future risk in social-ecological systems using fuzzy cognitive mapping: the case of wildfire in the Chiquitania, Bolivia

Understanding complex social-ecological systems, and anticipating how they may respond to rapid change, requires an approach that incorporates environmental, social, economic, and policy factors, usually in a context of fragmented data availability. We employed fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) to integrate these factors in the assessment of future wildfire risk in the Chiquitania region, Bolivia. In this region, dealing with wildfires is becoming increasingly challenging due to reinforcing feedbacks between multiple drivers. We conducted semi-structured interviews and constructed different FCMs in focus groups to understand the regional dynamics of wildfire from diverse perspectives. We used FCM modelling to evaluate possible adaptation scenarios in the context of future drier climatic conditions. Scenarios also considered possible failure to respond in time to the emergent risk. This approach proved of great potential to support decision-making for risk management. It helped identify key forcing variables and generate insights into potential risks and trade-offs of different strategies. All scenarios showed increased wildfire risk in the event of more droughts. The ‘Hands-off’ scenario resulted in amplified impacts driven by intensifying trends, affecting particularly the agricultural production. The ‘Fire management’ scenario, which adopted a bottom-up approach to improve controlled burning, showed less trade-offs between wildfire risk reduction and production compared to the ‘Fire suppression’ scenario. Findings highlighted the importance of considering strategies that involve all actors who use fire, and the need to nest these strategies for a more systemic approach to manage wildfire risk. The FCM model could be used as a decision-support tool and serve as a ‘boundary object’ to facilitate collaboration and integration of different forms of knowledge and perceptions of fire in the region. This approach has also the potential to support decisions in other dynamic frontier landscapes around the world that are facing increased risk of large wildfires.

Northern hemisphere snow: measurement, modelling and predictability

Northern hemisphere snow water equivalent (SWE) distribution from remote sensing (SSM/I), the ERA40 reanalysis product and the HadCM3 general circulation model are compared. Large differences are seen in the February climatologies, particularly over Siberia. The SSM/I retrieval algorithm may be overestimating SWE in this region, while comparison with independent runoff estimates suggest that HadCM3 is underestimating SWE. Treatment of snow grain size and vegetation parameterizations are concerns with the remotely sensed data. For this reason, ERA40 is used as `truth' for the following experiments. Despite the climatology differences, HadCM3 is able to reproduce the distribution of ERA40 SWE anomalies when assimilating ERA40 anomaly fields of temperature, sea level pressure, atmospheric winds and ocean temperature and salinity. However when forecasts are released from these assimilated initial states, the SWE anomaly distribution diverges rapidly from that of ERA40. No predictability is seen from one season to another. Strong links between European SWE distribution and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are seen, but forecasts of this index by the assimilation scheme are poor. Longer term relationships between SWE and the NAO, and SWE and the El Ni\~no-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are also investigated in a multi-century run of HadCM3. SWE is impacted by ENSO in the Himalayas and North America, while the NAO affects SWE in North America and Europe. While significant connections with the NAO index were only present in DJF (and to an extent SON), the link between ENSO and February SWE distribution was seen to exist from the previous JJA ENSO index onwards. This represents a long lead time for SWE prediction for hydrological applications such as flood and wildfire forecasting. Further work is required to develop reliable large scale observation-based SWE datasets with which to test these model-derived connections.

A climate change risk analysis for world ecosystems

We quantify the risks of climate-induced changes in key ecosystem processes during the 21st century by forcing a dynamic global vegetation model with multiple scenarios from 16 climate models and mapping the proportions of model runs showing forest/nonforest shifts or exceedance of natural variability in wildfire frequency and freshwater supply. Our analysis does not assign probabilities to scenarios or weights to models. Instead, we consider distribution of outcomes within three sets of model runs grouped by the amount of global warming they simulate: <2°C (including simulations in which atmospheric composition is held constant, i.e., in which the only climate change is due to greenhouse gases already emitted), 2–3°C, and >3°C. High risk of forest loss is shown for Eurasia, eastern China, Canada, Central America, and Amazonia, with forest extensions into the Arctic and semiarid savannas; more frequent wildfire in Amazonia, the far north, and many semiarid regions; more runoff north of 50°N and in tropical Africa and northwestern South America; and less runoff in West Africa, Central America, southern Europe, and the eastern U.S. Substantially larger areas are affected for global warming >3°C than for <2°C; some features appear only at higher warming levels. A land carbon sink of ≈1 Pg of C per yr is simulated for the late 20th century, but for >3°C this sink converts to a carbon source during the 21st century (implying a positive climate feedback) in 44% of cases. The risks continue increasing over the following 200 years, even with atmospheric composition held constant.

Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia

Large, well-documented wildfires have recently generated worldwide attention, and raised concerns about the impacts of humans and climate change on wildfire regimes. However, comparatively little is known about the patterns and driving forces of global fire activity before the twentieth century. Here we compile sedimentary charcoal records spanning six continents to document trends in both natural and anthropogenic biomass burning for the past two millennia. We find that global biomass burning declined from AD 1 to 1750, before rising sharply between 1750 and 1870. Global burning then declined abruptly after 1870. The early decline in biomass burning occurred in concert with a global cooling trend and despite a rise in the human population. We suggest the subsequent rise was linked to increasing human influences, such as population growth and land-use changes. Our compilation suggests that the final decline occurred despite increasing air temperatures and population. We attribute this reduction in the amount of biomass burned over the past 150 years to the global expansion of intensive grazing, agriculture and fire management.

Modelling fire and the terrestrial carbon balance

Four CO2 concentration inversions and the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) versions 2.1 and 3 are used to provide benchmarks for climate-driven modeling of the global land-atmosphere CO2 flux and the contribution of wildfire to this flux. The Land surface Processes and exchanges (LPX) model is introduced. LPX is based on the Lund-Potsdam-Jena Spread and Intensity of FIRE (LPJ-SPITFIRE) model with amended fire probability calculations. LPX omits human ignition sources yet simulates many aspects of global fire adequately. It captures the major features of observed geographic pattern in burnt area and its seasonal timing and the unimodal relationship of burnt area to precipitation. It simulates features of geographic variation in the sign of the interannual correlations of burnt area with antecedent dryness and precipitation. It simulates well the interannual variability of the global total land-atmosphere CO2 flux. There are differences among the global burnt area time series from GFED2.1, GFED3 and LPX, but some features are common to all. GFED3 fire CO2 fluxes account for only about 1/3 of the variation in total CO2 flux during 1997–2005. This relationship appears to be dominated by the strong climatic dependence of deforestation fires. The relationship of LPX-modeled fire CO2 fluxes to total CO2 fluxes is weak. Observed and modeled total CO2 fluxes track the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) closely; GFED3 burnt area and global fire CO2 flux track the ENSO much less so. The GFED3 fire CO2 flux-ENSO connection is most prominent for the El Niño of 1997–1998, which produced exceptional burning conditions in several regions, especially equatorial Asia. The sign of the observed relationship between ENSO and fire varies regionally, and LPX captures the broad features of this variation. These complexities underscore the need for process-based modeling to assess the consequences of global change for fire and its implications for the carbon cycle.

Volatile profile of Spanish Cistus plants as sources of antimicrobials for industrial applications

Cistus is a plant genus traditionally used in folk medicine as remedy for several microbial disorders and infections. The abundance of Cistus spp. in the Iberian Peninsula together with their ability to renew after wildfire contribute to their profitability as suppliers of functional ingredients. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive characterization of the volatile profile of different Cistus plants grown in Spain:Cistus ladanifer L., Cistus albidus L., Cistus salviifolius L., and Cistus clusii Dunal (the latter has not been studied before). A system combining headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC–MS) was implemented; thereby, the volatile compounds were extracted and analyzed in a fast, reliable and environment-friendly way. A total of 111 volatile compounds were identified, 28 of which were reported in Cistus for the first time. The most abundant components of the samples (mono and sesquiterpenes) have been previously reported as potent antimicrobial agents. Therefore, this work reveals the potential use of the Cistus spp. studied as natural sources of antimicrobial compounds for industrial production of cosmeceuticals, among other applications.