Global carbon emissions from biomass burning in the 20th century

We used a new, 100‐year, 1 × 1° global fire map and a carbon cycle model (CASA) to provide a yearly gridded estimate of the temporal trend in carbon emissions due to wildfires through the 20th century. 2700–3325 Tg C y−1 burn at the end of the 20th century, compared to 1500–2700 Tg C y−1 at the begi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2006-01, Vol.33 (1), p.n/a
Main Authors: Mouillot, Florent, Narasimha, Ajay, Balkanski, Yves, Lamarque, Jean-François, Field, Christopher B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Physics
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We used a new, 100‐year, 1 × 1° global fire map and a carbon cycle model (CASA) to provide a yearly gridded estimate of the temporal trend in carbon emissions due to wildfires through the 20th century. 2700–3325 Tg C y−1 burn at the end of the 20th century, compared to 1500–2700 Tg C y−1 at the beginning, with increasing uncertainty moving backward in time. There have been major changes in the regional distribution of emissions from fires, as a consequence of i) increased burning in tropical savannas and ii) a switch of emissions from temperate and boreal forests towards the tropics. The frequently‐used assumption that pre‐industrial emissions were 10% of present biomass burning is clearly inadequate, in terms of both the total amount and the spatial distribution of combustion.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2005GL024707