Climate change impacts on global wildfire ignitions by lightning and the safe management of landscape fuels
Lead Research Organisation:
University of East Anglia
Department Name: Environmental Sciences
Abstract
2020 will be remembered not only for Covid-19, but also for its devastating wildfires. The year began with the Australian bushfires, which caused 34 deaths and over US$70 billion of damages. The wildfires that are currently burning across the Western US look set to be the costliest in US history, with over 30 people already killed directly. The wildfires of 2020 join a growing list of extreme wildfires seen in Mediterranean Europe, North America, Australia, Siberia and the Arctic in the past decade.
Wildfires are strongly tied to climatic droughts, which enhance the flammability of vegetation. As drought frequency is projected to rise in future, there are serious concerns that the fires seen in recent years are a glimpse into a more fire-prone future. Lightning strikes are the dominant cause of wildfire in many regions and, for example, ignited many of the recent Australian and US fire complexes.
It is critical that we understand the drivers of wildfire, build capacity to predict their future likelihood, and take steps to mitigate their impacts. Our current understanding of fires at the global scale is built around satellite observations. However, these observations are insufficient to disentangle the diverse drivers of fire; they see only patterns. Satellite observations provide a mixed signal of many different types of fire, including wildfires but also a range of fires under human control (e.g. agricultural fires and deforestation fires), meaning that observations of wildfire are 'contaminated' with other fire types. Critically, this obscures trends in wildfire activity and compromises our understanding of climate impacts on wildfire activity.
The proposed project will create the first global capacity to isolate lightning-ignited wildfires from satellite observations. It will use new observations of lightning strikes from ground- and satellite-based lightning sensors to 'decontaminate' satellite observations and introduce a global dataset of lightning-ignited wildfire activity. The new dataset will be used to make key advances in the understanding of wildfires and their relationship with climate. The project will assess how wildfire activity has changed in recent decades, and it will specifically determine the climatic conditions under which lightning fires occur. This new understanding of fire drivers will be built into the UK Earth System model and used to predict the impact of climate change on wildfire activity in the future century.
The new capacity to observe wildfires will also enable a major advance in the estimation of deforestation fire emissions, specifically in Amazonia which accounts around 40% of global emissions due to land use change. Deforestation fire emissions contribute to an increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and contribute to climate change. However, emissions from Amazonian deforestation fires are known to be overestimated because emissions from lightning-ignited wildfires are undesirably included in the estimates. The new record of lightning-ignited wildfires developed in this study will be used to correct the emissions estimates and discount wildfires that occur as part of a natural disturbance-recovery cycle in the region.
Finally, this project will evaluate our future capacity to manage the threats of wildfires in a changing climate using conventional approaches to forest fuel management. It is common in some regions (e.g. Australia and the western US) to manage forest fuel stocks by burning off the most flammable fuels on the forest floor. However, this practice can only be applied safely during cool, moist, wind-free weather that occur in an annual 'window' of opportunity. It is feared that this window will narrow in future due to climate change. In this project, climate model outputs will be used to predict change in the window to 2100, informing forest management agencies of their future challenges and resource needs.
Wildfires are strongly tied to climatic droughts, which enhance the flammability of vegetation. As drought frequency is projected to rise in future, there are serious concerns that the fires seen in recent years are a glimpse into a more fire-prone future. Lightning strikes are the dominant cause of wildfire in many regions and, for example, ignited many of the recent Australian and US fire complexes.
It is critical that we understand the drivers of wildfire, build capacity to predict their future likelihood, and take steps to mitigate their impacts. Our current understanding of fires at the global scale is built around satellite observations. However, these observations are insufficient to disentangle the diverse drivers of fire; they see only patterns. Satellite observations provide a mixed signal of many different types of fire, including wildfires but also a range of fires under human control (e.g. agricultural fires and deforestation fires), meaning that observations of wildfire are 'contaminated' with other fire types. Critically, this obscures trends in wildfire activity and compromises our understanding of climate impacts on wildfire activity.
The proposed project will create the first global capacity to isolate lightning-ignited wildfires from satellite observations. It will use new observations of lightning strikes from ground- and satellite-based lightning sensors to 'decontaminate' satellite observations and introduce a global dataset of lightning-ignited wildfire activity. The new dataset will be used to make key advances in the understanding of wildfires and their relationship with climate. The project will assess how wildfire activity has changed in recent decades, and it will specifically determine the climatic conditions under which lightning fires occur. This new understanding of fire drivers will be built into the UK Earth System model and used to predict the impact of climate change on wildfire activity in the future century.
The new capacity to observe wildfires will also enable a major advance in the estimation of deforestation fire emissions, specifically in Amazonia which accounts around 40% of global emissions due to land use change. Deforestation fire emissions contribute to an increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and contribute to climate change. However, emissions from Amazonian deforestation fires are known to be overestimated because emissions from lightning-ignited wildfires are undesirably included in the estimates. The new record of lightning-ignited wildfires developed in this study will be used to correct the emissions estimates and discount wildfires that occur as part of a natural disturbance-recovery cycle in the region.
Finally, this project will evaluate our future capacity to manage the threats of wildfires in a changing climate using conventional approaches to forest fuel management. It is common in some regions (e.g. Australia and the western US) to manage forest fuel stocks by burning off the most flammable fuels on the forest floor. However, this practice can only be applied safely during cool, moist, wind-free weather that occur in an annual 'window' of opportunity. It is feared that this window will narrow in future due to climate change. In this project, climate model outputs will be used to predict change in the window to 2100, informing forest management agencies of their future challenges and resource needs.
Organisations
- University of East Anglia (Fellow, Lead Research Organisation)
- National Institute for Space Research Brazil (Collaboration)
- University of Zurich (Collaboration)
- Cardiff University (Collaboration)
- Global Carbon Project (Collaboration)
- Free University of Amsterdam (Collaboration)
- University of California, Merced (Collaboration)
- SWANSEA UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
People |
ORCID iD |
Matthew Jones (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Coppola A
(2022)
The black carbon cycle and its role in the Earth system
in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment
Friedlingstein P
(2022)
Global Carbon Budget 2022
in Earth System Science Data
Quine T
(2022)
Geomorphically mediated carbon dynamics of floodplain soils and implications for net effect of carbon erosion
in Hydrological Processes
Jones M
(2022)
Global and Regional Trends and Drivers of Fire Under Climate Change
in Reviews of Geophysics
Friedlingstein P
(2023)
Global Carbon Budget 2023
Description | BEIS consultation: Climate services for a Net Zero resilient world (CS-N0W) |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Impact | Content of the consultation report us being used to inform BEIS policy on climate change. |
URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/climate-services-for-a-net-zero-resilient-world/cs-n0w-ov... |
Description | Whitepaper: "Why Nature? Why Now?" World Resources Institute / Food and Land Use Coalition |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Impact | WRI / FOLU use the reports to influence the environmental policies of government, large enterprises and SME and also produce public products stemming from the "Why Nature? Why Now?" report. |
URL | https://www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/why-nature/ |
Description | Critical Decade for Climate Change Leverhulme Doctoral Scholars |
Amount | £1,350,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | DS-2020-028 |
Organisation | The Leverhulme Trust |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 10/2022 |
End | 04/2026 |
Description | ESRC-NERC SeNSS-ARIES Joint Studentship |
Amount | £14,512,266 (GBP) |
Funding ID | ES/P00072X/1 |
Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 10/2022 |
End | 04/2026 |
Description | Collaboration with Alysha Coppola at UTH Zurich |
Organisation | University of Zurich |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Co-author on a global review of the black carbon cycle. - Lead author on a global-scale analysis of dissolved black carbon export. - Co-author on an analysis of dissolved black carbon export from Amazonia. - Co-author on an analysis dissolved black carbon export from North America (in preparation) |
Collaborator Contribution | - Lead author on a global review of the black carbon cycle. - Lead author on an analysis dissolved black carbon export from Amazonia. - Co-author on a global-scale analysis of dissolved black carbon export. - Lead author on an analysis dissolved black carbon export from North America (in preparation) |
Impact | - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11543-9 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16576-z - https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00316-6 |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | Global Carbon Project |
Organisation | Global Carbon Project |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Learned Society |
PI Contribution | - Member of the global carbon project - Contribute to annual publications of the global carbon budget - Contribute to media effort associated with publications of the global carbon budget - Attend UNFCCC COP events to unveil the global carbon budget - Co-author of 4 global carbon budget papers - Co-author of 2 papers connected to the global carbon budget - Lead author of two papers connected to the global carbon budget |
Collaborator Contribution | - We annually publish the global carbon budget - We engage with the media upon publication of the global carbon budget - Global carbon budget is unveiled annually at UNFCCC COP events |
Impact | - https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/11/1783/2019/ - https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/3269/2020/ - https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/1917/2022/ - https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/4811/2022/ - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-%200797-x - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01001-0 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-00779-6 |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Partnership with John Abatzoglou and Crystal Kolden, UC Merced |
Organisation | University of California, Merced |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Authored one paper. - Leading a proposal for NERC Pushing the Frontiers. |
Collaborator Contribution | - Co-authorship of one paper. Partners provided data, wrote sections of text, provided feedback and comments. - John is contributing as Co-I on a proposal I am preparing for NERC. |
Impact | https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726 |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Partnership with Luiz Aragão and Liana Anderson, INPE |
Organisation | National Institute for Space Research Brazil |
Country | Brazil |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | - Leading 3 papers (in preparation) |
Collaborator Contribution | - Co-authors on 3 papers (in preparation) - Postdoc will visit UEA for one year and engage in joint research under my supervision (subject to sign-off on funding from FAPESP) |
Impact | - 3 papers (in preparation) - 1 postdoc exchange (subject to sign-off on funding from FAPESP) |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Partnership with Niels Andela |
Organisation | Cardiff University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Lead author on 3 papers (2 in preparation) - Co-developer of model code (Global Fire Atlas) |
Collaborator Contribution | - Co-author on 3 papers (2 in preparation) - Access to model code (Global Fire Atlas) |
Impact | - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726 |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Partnership with Sander Veraverbeke and Guido van der Werf, VU Amsterdam |
Organisation | Free University of Amsterdam |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Joint purchase ($50,000 contribution) of global lightning dataset - Lead author 3 papers (2 published, 1 under revision) - Co-author 1 paper (under revision) |
Collaborator Contribution | - Joint purchase ($50,000 contribution) of global lightning dataset - Co-author 3 papers - Lead author 1 paper (under revision) |
Impact | - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0403-x |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Partnership with Stefan Doerr and Cristina Santín, Swansea University |
Organisation | Swansea University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Lead author of 3 papers |
Collaborator Contribution | - Co-author of 1 paper |
Impact | - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2020RG000726 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0403-x - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16576-z - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2020GB006647 |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Expert Reaction used: 'Meteorological mayhem' set to rock Britain 'climate breakdown' hits |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Issued rapid reaction to Science Media Centre, published by The Express. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1654339/uk-weather-forecast-latest-climate-change-temperatures-upd... |
Description | Expert Reaction used: How drones, robots and AI are used to tackle wildfires |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Expert reaction provided to Science Media Centre and used by 6 outlets |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/clippings/how-drones-robots-and-ai-are-used-to-tackle-wildfires... |
Description | Interview: BBC weather world, broadcast on BBC World News / BBC News / Breakfast / Regional News |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interviewed by the BBC during the UK, European and North American wildfires summer 2022. Segment broadcast on all BBC TV channels multiple times over 2-3 days. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bmm7/weather-world-august-2022 |
Description | Invited Talk: Fate of Pyrogenic Carbon in the Earth System, École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris, January 2023 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Gave talk in Paris, hybrid. Scientific and wider audience of those following research on pyrogenic carbon. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Invited Talk: Re-imagining Global Pyromes, Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Gave talk at INPE during research visit. Hybrid event - wider scientific / third sector audience. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Press release: Wildfire risk has grown nearly everywhere, but we can still influence where and how fires strike |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | PR Covered by 49 outlets worldwide including BBC online |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/matthew-jones/clippings/ |
Description | The Conversation: Climate change: wildfire risk has grown nearly everywhere - but we can still influence where and how fires strike |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Article to convey take-homes our review article https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://theconversation.com/climate-change-wildfire-risk-has-grown-nearly-everywhere-but-we-can-stil... |
Description | Workshop: UK Committee on Climate Change - Wildfire Impact, Risk and Mitigation Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | UK CCC event at the Royal Geographical Society, financed by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. Among experts invited to contribute to policy workshop on wildfire risk reduction in the UK. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |