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Reduction in global area burned and wildfire emissions since 1930s enhances carbon uptake by land.

ABSTRACT: The terrestrial biosphere currently absorbs about 30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This carbon uptake over land results primarily from vegetation's response to increasing atmospheric CO2 but other factors also play a role. Here we show that since the 1930s increasing population densities and cropland area have decreased global area burned, consistent with the charcoal record and recent satellite-based observations. The associated reduced wildfire emissions from increase in cropland area do not enhance carbon uptake since natural vegetation that is spared burning was deforested anyway. However, reduction in fire CO2 emissions due to fire suppression and landscape fragmentation associated with increases in population density is calculated to enhance land carbon uptake by 0.13?Pg?C?yr-1, or ~19% of the global land carbon uptake (0.7?±?0.6?Pg?C?yr-1), for the 1960-2009 period. These results identify reduction in global wildfire CO2 emissions as yet another mechanism that is currently enhancing carbon uptake over land.

SUBMITTER: Arora VK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5904128 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reduction in global area burned and wildfire emissions since 1930s enhances carbon uptake by land.

Arora Vivek K VK Melton Joe R JR

Nature communications 20180417 1

The terrestrial biosphere currently absorbs about 30% of anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. This carbon uptake over land results primarily from vegetation's response to increasing atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> but other factors also play a role. Here we show that since the 1930s increasing population densities and cropland area have decreased global area burned, consistent with the charcoal record and recent satellite-based observations. The associated reduced wildfire emissions from increase ...[more]

PMID: 29666366

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Project description:BackgroundSeveral independent lines of evidence suggest that Amazon forests have provided a significant carbon sink service, and also that the Amazon carbon sink in intact, mature forests may now be threatened as a result of different processes. There has however been no work done to quantify non-land-use-change forest carbon fluxes on a national basis within Amazonia, or to place these national fluxes and their possible changes in the context of the major anthropogenic carbon fluxes in the region. Here we present a first attempt to interpret results from ground-based monitoring of mature forest carbon fluxes in a biogeographically, politically, and temporally differentiated way. Specifically, using results from a large long-term network of forest plots, we estimate the Amazon biomass carbon balance over the last three decades for the different regions and nine nations of Amazonia, and evaluate the magnitude and trajectory of these differentiated balances in relation to major national anthropogenic carbon emissions.ResultsThe sink of carbon into mature forests has been remarkably geographically ubiquitous across Amazonia, being substantial and persistent in each of the five biogeographic regions within Amazonia. Between 1980 and 2010, it has more than mitigated the fossil fuel emissions of every single national economy, except that of Venezuela. For most nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname) the sink has probably additionally mitigated all anthropogenic carbon emissions due to Amazon deforestation and other land use change. While the sink has weakened in some regions since 2000, our analysis suggests that Amazon nations which are able to conserve large areas of natural and semi-natural landscape still contribute globally-significant carbon sequestration.ConclusionsMature forests across all of Amazonia have contributed significantly to mitigating climate change for decades. Yet Amazon nations have not directly benefited from providing this global scale ecosystem service. We suggest that better monitoring and reporting of the carbon fluxes within mature forests, and understanding the drivers of changes in their balance, must become national, as well as international, priorities.

Dataset Information

Reduction in global area burned and wildfire emissions since 1930s enhances carbon uptake by land.

Publications

Reduction in global area burned and wildfire emissions since 1930s enhances carbon uptake by land.

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