Disentangling the contribution of multiple land covers to fire-mediated carbon emissions in Amazonia during the 2010 drought.

ABSTRACT: In less than 15?years, the Amazon region experienced three major droughts. Links between droughts and fires have been demonstrated for the 1997/1998, 2005, and 2010 droughts. In 2010, emissions of 510?±?120?Tg?C were associated to fire alone in Amazonia. Existing approaches have, however, not yet disentangled the proportional contribution of multiple land cover sources to this total. We develop a novel integration of multisensor and multitemporal satellite-derived data on land cover, active fires, and burned area and an empirical model of fire-induced biomass loss to quantify the extent of burned areas and resulting biomass loss for multiple land covers in Mato Grosso (MT) state, southern Amazonia-the 2010 drought most impacted region. We show that 10.77% (96,855?km²) of MT burned. We estimated a gross carbon emission of 56.21?±?22.5?Tg?C from direct combustion of biomass, with an additional 29.4?±?10?Tg?C committed to be emitted in the following years due to dead wood decay. It is estimated that old-growth forest fires in the whole Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) have contributed to 14.81?Tg of C (11.75?Tg?C to 17.87?Tg?C) emissions to the atmosphere during the 2010 fire season, with an affected area of 27,555?km². Total C loss from the 2010 fires in MT state and old-growth forest fires in the BLA represent, respectively, 77% (47% to 107%) and 86% (68.2% to 103%) of Brazil's National Plan on Climate Change annual target for Amazonia C emission reductions from deforestation.

SUBMITTER: Anderson LO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4994379 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature