Trends and drivers of Arctic-boreal fire intensity between 2003 and 2022

Yanxi Li, Thomas A.J. Janssen, Rui Chen, Binbin He, Sander Veraverbeke

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Climate change has disproportional effects on Arctic-boreal ecosystems, as the increase of air temperatures in these northern regions is several times higher than the global average. Ongoing warming and drying have resulted in recent record-breaking fire years in Arctic-boreal ecosystems, resulting in substantial carbon emissions that might accelerate climate change. While recent trends in Arctic-boreal burned area have been well documented, it is still unclear how fire intensity has changed. Fire intensity relates to the energy release from combustion and to a large extent drives the impact of a fire on the vegetation and soils, the emission of various gasses and the combustion completeness of different fuels. Here, we used the active fire product from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to examine trends in fire radiative power (FRP) over the entire Arctic-boreal region. We found a significant increase in annual median fire intensity between 2003 and 2022 in Eurasian boreal forests, for both daytime (increase of 0.392 MW/km2 per year, R2 = 0.56, p < 0.001) and nighttime fires (increase of 0.175 MW/km2 per year, R2 = 0.47, p < 0.001), while no general trend in FRP was observed in boreal North America. This increase in FRP in Eurasian boreal forests was strongly associated with simultaneous increases in air temperature, vapour pressure deficit, fire weather and fuel availability. We estimated that for Eurasia with each degree increase in air temperature, annual median daytime FRP increases with 1.58 MW/km2 in the tundra and 0.94 MW/km2 in the taiga. Climate change has thus resulted in a widespread and clear increase in fire intensity in central and eastern Eurasia while we could not discern clear trends in Arctic-boreal North America. Arctic-boreal fire intensity may further increase with climate change, with potentially major consequences for fire regimes, carbon emissions and society.
Original languageEnglish
Article number172020
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume926
Early online date27 Mar 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 May 2024

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Contract No. U20A2090 ). Yanxi Li thanks the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for funding her study in the Netherlands. The contributions of T.A.J. and S.V. were funded by the European Research Council through a Consolidator grant under the European Union 's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme (grant agreement No. 101000987 ) awarded to S.V.

FundersFunder number
China Scholarship Council
European Research Council
European Union's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme
National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaU20A2090
National Natural Science Foundation of China
European Union 's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme101000987

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