Global analysis of radiative forcing from fire-induced shortwave albedo change

Land surface albedo, a key parameter to derive Earth's surface energy balance, is used in the parameterization of numerical weather prediction, climate monitoring and climate change impact assessments. Changes in albedo due to fire have not been fully investigated on a continental and global scale. The main goal of this study, therefore, is to quantify the changes in instantaneous shortwave albedo produced by biomass burning activities and their associated radiative forcing. The study relies on the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) MCD64A1 burned-area product to create an annual composite of areas affected by fire and the MCD43C2 bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) albedo snow-free product to compute a bihemispherical reflectance time series. The approximate day of burning is used to calculate the instantaneous change in shortwave albedo. Using the corresponding National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) monthly mean downward solar radiation flux at the surface, the global radiative forcing associated with fire was computed. The analysis reveals a mean decrease in shortwave albedo of −0.014 (1σ = 0.017), causing a mean positive radiative forcing of 3.99 Wm−2 (1σ = 4.89) over the 2002–20012 time period in areas affected by fire. The greatest drop in mean shortwave albedo change occurs in 2002, which corresponds to the highest total area burned (378 Mha) observed in the same year and produces the highest mean radiative forcing (4.5 Wm−2). Africa is the main contributor in terms of burned area, but forests globally give the highest radiative forcing per unit area and thus give detectable changes in shortwave albedo. The global mean radiative forcing for the whole period studied (~0.0275 Wm−2) shows that the contribution of fires to the Earth system is not insignificant.

Operational active fire mapping and burnt area identification applicable to Mexican Nature Protection Areas using MODIS and NOAA-AVHRR direct readout data

Since 1999, the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of the Biodiversity (CONABIO) in Mexico has been developing and managing the “Operational program for the detection of hot-spots using remote sensing techniques”. This program uses images from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA-AVHRR), which are operationally received through the Direct Readout station (DR) at CONABIO. This allows the near-real time monitoring of fire events in Mexico and Central America. In addition to the detection of active fires, the location of hot spots are classified with respect to vegetation types, accessibility, and risk to Nature Protection Areas (NPA). Besides the fast detection of fires, further analysis is necessary due to the considerable effects of forest fires on biodiversity and human life. This fire impact assessment is crucial to support the needs of resource managers and policy makers for adequate fire recovery and restoration actions. CONABIO attempts to meet these requirements, providing post-fire assessment products as part of the management system in particular for satellite-based burnt area mapping. This paper provides an overview of the main components of the operational system and will present an outlook to future activities and system improvements, especially the development of a burnt area product. A special focus will also be placed on the fire occurrence within NPAs of Mexico

Improved simulation of fire–vegetation interactions in the Land surface Processes and eXchanges dynamic global vegetation model (LPX-Mv1)

The Land surface Processes and eXchanges (LPX) model is a fire-enabled dynamic global vegetation model that performs well globally but has problems representing fire regimes and vegetative mix in savannas. Here we focus on improving the fire module. To improve the representation of ignitions, we introduced a reatment of lightning that allows the fraction of ground strikes to vary spatially and seasonally, realistically partitions strike distribution between wet and dry days, and varies the number of dry days with strikes. Fuel availability and moisture content were improved by implementing decomposition rates specific to individual plant functional types and litter classes, and litter drying rates driven by atmospheric water content. To improve water extraction by grasses, we use realistic plant-specific treatments of deep roots. To improve fire responses, we introduced adaptive bark thickness and post-fire resprouting for tropical and temperate broadleaf trees. All improvements are based on extensive analyses of relevant observational data sets. We test model performance for Australia, first evaluating parameterisations separately and then measuring overall behaviour against standard benchmarks. Changes to the lightning parameterisation produce a more realistic simulation of fires in southeastern and central Australia. Implementation of PFT-specific decomposition rates enhances performance in central Australia. Changes in fuel drying improve fire in northern Australia, while changes in rooting depth produce a more realistic simulation of fuel availability and structure in central and northern Australia. The introduction of adaptive bark thickness and resprouting produces more realistic fire regimes in Australian savannas. We also show that the model simulates biomass recovery rates consistent with observations from several different regions of the world characterised by resprouting vegetation. The new model (LPX-Mv1) produces an improved simulation of observed vegetation composition and mean annual burnt area, by 33 and 18% respectively compared to LPX.

Long-range ozone transport and its impact on respiratory and cardiovascular health in the north of Portugal

Ozone dynamics depend on meteorological characteristics such as wind, radiation, sunshine, air temperature and precipitation. The aim of this study was to determine ozone trajectories along the northern coast of Portugal during the summer months of 2005, when there was a spate of forest fires in the region, evaluating their impact on respiratory and cardiovascular health in the greater metropolitan area of Porto. We investigated the following diseases, as coded in the ninth revision of the International Classification of Diseases: hypertensive disease (codes 401-405); ischemic heart disease (codes 410-414); other cardiac diseases, including heart failure (codes 426-428); chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allied conditions, including bronchitis and asthma (codes 490-496); and pneumoconiosis and other lung diseases due to external agents (codes 500-507). We evaluated ozone data from air quality monitoring stations in the study area, together with data collected through HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model analysis of air mass circulation and synoptic-scale zonal wind from National Centers for Environmental Prediction data. High ozone levels in rural areas were attributed to the dispersion of pollutants induced by local circulation, as well as by mesoscale and synoptic scale processes. The fires of 2005 increased the levels of pollutants resulting from the direct emission of gases and particles into the atmosphere, especially when there were incoming frontal systems. For the meteorological case studies analyzed, peaks in ozone concentration were positively associated with higher rates of hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases, although there were no significant associations between ozone peaks and admissions for respiratory diseases.

Regional representativity of AERONET observation sites during the biomass burning season in South America determined by correlation studies with MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth

This paper presents an analysis of ground-based Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) observations by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) in South America from 2001 to 2007 in comparison with the satellite AOD product of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), aboard TERRA and AQUA satellites. Data of 12 observation sites were used with primary interest in AERONET sites located in or downwind of areas with high biomass burning activity and with measurements available for the full time range. Fires cause the predominant carbonaceous aerosol emission signal during the dry season in South America and are therefore a special focus of this study. Interannual and seasonal behavior of the observed AOD at different sites were investigated, showing clear differences between purely fire and urban influenced sites. An intercomparison of AERONET and MODIS AOD annual correlations revealed that neither an interannual long-term trend may be observed nor that correlations differ significantly owing to different overpass times of TERRA and AQUA. Individual anisotropic representativity areas for each AERONET site were derived by correlating daily AOD of each site for all years with available individual MODIS AOD pixels gridded to 1 degrees x 1 degrees. Results showed that for many sites a good AOD correlation (R(2) > 0.5) persists for large, often strongly anisotropic, areas. The climatological areas of common regional aerosol regimes often extend over several hundreds of kilometers, sometimes far across national boundaries. As a practical application, these strongly inhomogeneous and anisotropic areas of influence are being implemented in the tropospheric aerosol data assimilation system of the Coupled Chemistry-Aerosol-Tracer Transport Model coupled to the Brazilian Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT-BRAMS) at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This new information promises an improved exploitation of local site sampling and, thus, chemical weather forecast.

Nurses’ perceptions of climate and environmental issues : a qualitative study

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore nurses' perceptions of climate and environmental issues and examine how nurses perceive their role in contributing to the process of sustainable development.  Background: Climate change and its implications for human health represent an increasingly important issue for the healthcare sector. According to the International Council of Nurses Code of Ethics, nurses have a responsibility to be involved and support climate change mitigation and adaptation to protect human health.  Design: This is a descriptive, explorative qualitative study.  Methods: Nurses (n=18) were recruited from hospitals, primary care and emergency medical services; eight participated in semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews and 10 participated in two focus groups. Data were collected from April-October 2013 in Sweden; interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using content analysis.  Results: Two main themes were identified from the interviews: (i) an incongruence between climate and environmental issues and nurses' daily work; and (ii) public health work is regarded as a health co-benefit of climate change mitigation. While being green is not the primary task in a lifesaving, hectic and economically challenging context, nurses' perceived their profession as entailing responsibility, opportunities and a sense of individual commitment to influence the environment in a positive direction.  Conclusions: This study argues there is a need for increased awareness of issues and methods that are crucial for the healthcare sector to respond to climate change. Efforts to develop interventions should explore how nurses should be able to contribute to the healthcare sector's preparedness for and contributions to sustainable development.

Mercury emissions from forest burning in southern Amazon

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Laboratory evaluation of Amazon forest biomass burning emissions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Biomass consumption and CO2, CO and main hydrocarbon gas emissions in an Amazonian forest clearing fire

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Hidrocarbonetos policíclicos aromáticos no meio ambiente: diferenciação de fontes em sedimentos e metabólitos em bile de peixes

Many studies on environmental ecosystems quality related to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) have been carried out routinely due to their ubiquotus presence worldwide and to their potential toxicity after its biotransformation. PAH may be introduced into the environmet by natural and anthropogenic processes from direct runoff and discharges and indirect atmospheric deposition. Sources of naturally occurring PAHs include natural fires, natural oil seepage and recent biological or diagenetic processes. Anthropogenic sources of PAHs, acute or chronic, are combustion of organic matter (petroleum, coal, wood), waste and releases/spills of petroleum and derivatives (river runoff, sewage outfalls, maritime transport, pipelines). Besides the co-existence of multiples sources of PAH in the environmental samples, these compounds are subject to many processes that lead to geochemical fates (physical-chemical transformation, biodegradation and photo-oxidation), which leads to an alteration of their composition. All these facts make the identification of the hydrocarbons sources, if petrogenic, pyrolytic or natural, a challenge. One of the objectives of this study is to establish tools to identify the origin of hydrocarbons in environmental samples. PAH diagnostic ratios and PAH principal component analysis were tested on a critical area: Guanabara Bay sediments. Guanabara Bay is located in a complex urban area of Rio de Janeiro with a high anthropogenic influence, being an endpoint of chronic pollution from the Greater Rio and it was the scenario of an acute event of oil release in January 2000. It were quantified 38 compounds, parental and alkylated PAH, in 21 sediment samples collected in two surveys: 2000 and 2003. The PAH levels varied from 400 to 58439 ng g-1. Both tested techniques for origin identification of hydrocarbons have shown their applicability, being able to discriminate the PAH sources for the majority of the samples analysed. The bay sediments were separated into two big clusters: sediments with a clear pattern of petrogenic introduction of hydrocarbons (from intertidal area) and sediments with combustion characteristics (from subtidal region). Only a minority of the samples could not display a clear contribution of petrogenic or pyrolytic input. The diagnostic ratios that have exhibited high ability to distinguish combustion- and petroleum-derived PAH inputs for Guanabara Bay sediments were Phenanthrene+Anthracene/(Phenanthrene+Anthracene+C1Phenanthrene); Fluorantene/(Fluorantene+Pyrene); Σ (other 3-6 ring PAHs)/ Σ (5 alkylated PAH series). The PCA results prooved to be a useful tool for PAH source identification in the environment, corroborating the diagnostic indexes. In relation to the temporal evaluation carried out in this study, it was not verified significant changes on the class of predominant source of the samples. This result indicates that the hydrocarbons present in the Guanabara Bay sediments are mainly related to the long-term anthropogenic input and not directly related to acute events such as the oil spill of January 2000. This findings were similar to various international estuarine sites. Finally, this work had a complementary objective of evaluating the level of hydrocarbons exposure of the aquatic organisms of Guanabara Bay. It was a preliminary study in which a quantification of 12 individual biliar metabolites of PAH was performed in four demersal fish representing three different families. The analysed metabolites were 1-hydroxynaphtalene, 2-hidroxinaphtalene, 1hydroxyphenanthrene, 9-hydroxyphenanthrene, 2-hydroxyphenanthrene, 1hydroxypyrene, 3-hidroxibiphenil, 3- hydroxyphenanthrene, 1-hydroxychrysene, 9hydroxyfluorene, 4-hydroxyphenanthrene, 3-hydroxybenz(a)pyrene. The metabolites concentrations were found to be high, ranging from 13 to 177 µg g-1, however they were similar to worldwide regions under high anthropogenic input. Besides the metabolites established by the used protocol, it was possible to verified high concentrations of three other compounds not yet reported in the literature. They were related to pyrolytic PAH contribution to Guanabara Bay aquatic biota: 1-hydroxypyrine and 3-hydroxybenz(a)pyrine isomers

Alterations following a fire in a forest community of Alto Rio Xingu

This study records the consequences of fire upon the soil and structure of the Amazonian Forest of Gaucha do Norte, Mato Grosso state, Brazil (13degrees12'S and 53degrees20'W). For this, the number of individuals sampled in 1 ha of the forest, during a phytosociological survey completed 2 days before the accidental fire, was compared with the survivors recorded afterwards in the reinventory of the area taken 2 days and 10 months after the fire. For the surveys, the area of 1 ha was subdivided into 50 plots of 10 m x 20 m, and all the individuals with circumference at breast height (CBH) greater than or equal to 15 cm were sampled. Chemical analysis of the 30 soil samples collected 2 days before the fire were compared with those obtained 15 days and 1 year after the fire. It was seen that, soon after the fire, there was a significant increase in the nutrient levels in the soil, an increase in the pH and a decrease in the aluminum toxicity. However, after 1 year, losses by lixiviation resulted in a nutrient reserve in the soil of less than that before the fire. The tree mortality was extremely high (23.98%), particularly amongst the younger individuals of the population (93.68% of the total of deaths in the period). There was no significant reduction in the forest richness analyzed: 60% of the species had reduced populations after the fire, but just four species were locally extinct. Results, however, demonstrated a role for fire in the selection of resistant species or those adapted to fires, since some species demonstrated a greater tolerance to the fire than others. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparative gas exchange performance during the wet season of three Brazilian Styrax species under habitat conditions of cerrado vegetation types differing in soil water availability and crown density

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Florística de uma Floresta Estacional Semidecidual, localizada em ecótono savânico-florestal, no município de Bauru, SP, Brasil

Informações florísticas escassas, referentes ao município de Bauru, e a elaboração de hipóteses sobre mecanismos de ocupação de fitocenoses florestais por espécies savânicas, representaram as principais questões motivadoras do presente estudo, desenvolvido em dois fragmentos de floresta estacional semidecidual (5 ha e 7 ha) mantidos pelo Jardim Botânico de Bauru, que abriga também savana florestada. O material botânico foi coletado a partir de caminhadas ao acaso e em parcelas implantadas durante estudo fitossociológico. Foram encontradas 264 espécies arbustivo-arbóreas, pertencentes a 58 famílias. Dessas espécies 126 foram coletadas apenas na fitocenose florestal, e 66 espécies foram coletadas em ambas as fitocenoses. As duas famílias com o maior número de espécies foram Rubiaceae (25 espécies) e Myrtaceae (21 espécies). Foi realizada análise de similaridade florística, a partir do índice de Jaccard (SJ), entre a floresta do JBMB e outros 11 remanescentes florestais, alguns dos quais, sob influência florística savânica. A riqueza florística dos fragmentos florestais do JBMB sofreu incremento, pela ocupação de espécies savânicas, oriundas da savana florestada contígua. Incêndios pretéritos, além da ocorrência de microambientes distintos, representaram prováveis fatores de facilitação para a invasão dessas espécies savânicas.

Contribution to the discussions on the origin of the cerrado biome: Brazilian savanna

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Contribution of forest species to the floristic composition of a forested savanna in southeastern Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)