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Title: Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests

Abstract

Tropical forests have been a permanent feature of the Amazon basin for at least 55 million years, yet climate change and land use threaten the forest's future over the next century. Understory forest fires, which are common under the current climate in frontier forests, may accelerate Amazon forest losses from climate-driven dieback and deforestation. Far from land use frontiers, scarce fire ignitions and high moisture levels preclude significant burning, yet projected climate and land use changes may increase fire activity in these remote regions. Here, we used a fire model specifically parameterized for Amazon understory fires to examine the interactions between anthropogenic activities and climate under current and projected conditions. In a scenario of low mitigation efforts with substantial land use expansion and climate change – Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 – projected understory fires increase in frequency and duration, burning 4–28 times more forest in 2080–2100 than during 1990–2010. In contrast, active climate mitigation and land use contraction in RCP4.5 constrain the projected increase in fire activity to 0.9–5.4 times contemporary burned area. Importantly, if climate mitigation is not successful, land use contraction alone is very effective under low to moderate climate change, but does little to reduce firemore » activity under the most severe climate projections. These results underscore the potential for a fire-driven transformation of Amazon forests if recent regional policies for forest conservation are not paired with global efforts to mitigate climate change.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [4];  [3]
  1. University of Lisbon (Portugal). Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia
  2. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  3. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Joint Global Change Research Institute
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Department of Geographical Sciences
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1415083
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-119758
Journal ID: ISSN 2190-4987; 400409900
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Earth System Dynamics (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Earth System Dynamics (Online); Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2190-4987
Publisher:
European Geosciences Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Citation Formats

Le Page, Yannick, Morton, Douglas, Hartin, Corinne, Bond-Lamberty, Ben, Pereira, Jose Miguel Cardoso, Hurtt, George, and Asrar, Ghassem. Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.5194/esd-8-1237-2017.
Le Page, Yannick, Morton, Douglas, Hartin, Corinne, Bond-Lamberty, Ben, Pereira, Jose Miguel Cardoso, Hurtt, George, & Asrar, Ghassem. Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests. United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1237-2017
Le Page, Yannick, Morton, Douglas, Hartin, Corinne, Bond-Lamberty, Ben, Pereira, Jose Miguel Cardoso, Hurtt, George, and Asrar, Ghassem. Wed . "Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests". United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1237-2017. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1415083.
@article{osti_1415083,
title = {Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests},
author = {Le Page, Yannick and Morton, Douglas and Hartin, Corinne and Bond-Lamberty, Ben and Pereira, Jose Miguel Cardoso and Hurtt, George and Asrar, Ghassem},
abstractNote = {Tropical forests have been a permanent feature of the Amazon basin for at least 55 million years, yet climate change and land use threaten the forest's future over the next century. Understory forest fires, which are common under the current climate in frontier forests, may accelerate Amazon forest losses from climate-driven dieback and deforestation. Far from land use frontiers, scarce fire ignitions and high moisture levels preclude significant burning, yet projected climate and land use changes may increase fire activity in these remote regions. Here, we used a fire model specifically parameterized for Amazon understory fires to examine the interactions between anthropogenic activities and climate under current and projected conditions. In a scenario of low mitigation efforts with substantial land use expansion and climate change – Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 – projected understory fires increase in frequency and duration, burning 4–28 times more forest in 2080–2100 than during 1990–2010. In contrast, active climate mitigation and land use contraction in RCP4.5 constrain the projected increase in fire activity to 0.9–5.4 times contemporary burned area. Importantly, if climate mitigation is not successful, land use contraction alone is very effective under low to moderate climate change, but does little to reduce fire activity under the most severe climate projections. These results underscore the potential for a fire-driven transformation of Amazon forests if recent regional policies for forest conservation are not paired with global efforts to mitigate climate change.},
doi = {10.5194/esd-8-1237-2017},
journal = {Earth System Dynamics (Online)},
number = 4,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Dec 20 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Wed Dec 20 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}

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