High Latitude Peatland Fires and their Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Peatlands are the world's largest store of terrestrial carbon, an equivalent of around 2/3 of the carbon in the atmosphere is stored in boreal peatlands alone. Peatlands also support critical biodiversity and help protect from floods and drought. Wildfires pose an existential risk to peatlands and, since carbon is never fully re-sequestered, the climate. Peatland wildfires are difficult to detect and map as they can smoulder below the surface through winter periods, in a form called a zombie fire. This also makes It challenging to quantify a site's susceptibility and vulnerability to wildfire activity. In addition, estimates of greenhouse gas emissions in
modern literature typically ignores critical information, such as carbon mineralisation, moisture, and temperature of different layers of the organic soils as well as the dynamics of the water-table and peat surface. The project will explore how different remote sensing products can identify and map the extent of peatland wildfires, particularly subterranean zombie fires. Derived measures of albedo, surface temperature, vegetation indexes, digital terrain maps, and more will be utilised for detection and tracking. By using these remote
sensing products in conjunction with hydrological models of boreal peatlands, the project will seek to improve contemporary understanding of peatland susceptibility to fires and how fire activity may evolve in the context of climate change. The remote sensing products will also be used to improve greenhouse gas emissions estimates from peat wildfires by more accurately mapping their burn volumes. The emission estimates will also be improved by investigating emission factor measurements from both lab based peat pyrolosis experiments and field-based measurements.