Project Funding: 2011 - 2014

NRA: 2010 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
A changing fire regime represents an important vulnerability for terrestrial carbon stocks in many biomes. Here we propose to develop new ways to quantify fire carbon emissions associated with different types of land management using satellite observations. Our work plan has the following four objectives. 1. In tropical forests, we will develop new estimates of carbon emissions from understory fires and from fires associated with small and large-scale deforestation clearings. 2. Globally, we will quantify post-fire trajectories of ecosystem recovery to improve the capacity for linking fires to different forms of land use and also to improve tree mortality and combustion completeness parameterizations. 3. We will reduce uncertainties associated with the attribution of fire emissions to different forms of land management using trajectory, fire size, and other satellite information. 4. We will assess the vulnerability of terrestrial carbon stocks to future changes in the fire regime and identify opportunities for mitigation. As a part of this effort, we will separately estimate the climate sensitivity of fire carbon emissions associated with different types of land management during the contemporary era (1997-2010) and combine this information with predictions of future climate from IPCC AR5 models. Another important project goal is to improve our Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) time series of burned area and fire carbon emissions using multiple satellite and field datasets for calibration and validation. We specifically plan to develop and release a 16 year time series of global fire carbon emissions (1997-2012) derived from MODIS observations, with a monthly time step and a 0.25° spatial resolution during 2000-2012. Other key deliverables will include the first global maps of pan-tropical understory fires, the first global maps of fire recovery times and fire sizes, improved attribution of fire carbon emissions to different forms of land use and land use change, and information about climate-induced changes in the fire regime during the 21st century. Our project is a collaborative effort by scientists from UC Irvine, Columbia University, Goddard Space Flight Center, Duke University, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Publications:

Andela, N., Morton, D. C., Giglio, L., Paugam, R., Chen, Y., Hantson, S., van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T. The Global Fire Atlas of individual fire size, duration, speed, and direction DOI: 10.5194/essd-2018-89

Rogers, B. M., Soja, A. J., Goulden, M. L., Randerson, J. T. 2015. Influence of tree species on continental differences in boreal fires and climate feedbacks. Nature Geoscience. 8(3), 228-234. DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2352

2013 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)

• Modeling the spatial patterns of wildfires ignitions in Southern Californian Mediterranean ecosystems.   --   (Nicolas R. Faivre, Yufang Jin, Michael L. Goulden, James T. Randerson)   [abstract]   [poster]

2011 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• Improving global fire carbon emissions estimates by combining moderate resolution burned area and active fire observations   --   (James T. Randerson, Yang Chen, Louis Giglio, Brendan Rogers, Hsiao-wen Lin, Guido R. van der Werf)   [abstract]
• Impacts of boreal forest fires and post-fire succession on energy budgets and climate   --   (Brendan Morris Rogers, James T. Randerson)   [abstract]
• Quantification of regional and global radiative impacts and climate effects of tropical fire aerosols   --   (Michael Tosca, James T. Randerson, Charles Zender)   [abstract]

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Project Profile