Changes in vegetation and humidity enhance wildfires than supercomputer simulations discover

The recent extreme fire seasons underscore the urgent need to better understand wildfires within the broader context of climate change. Under climate change, many wildfire drivers are expected to change, including vegetation, rainfall and the amount of carbon stored in lightning.

Previous climate computer model simulations do not capture the perfect coupling between the corresponding shifts in climate change, lightning, wildfires, smoke, solar radiation and heat, and therefore these processes in recent and future wildfire trends. The relative importance of .

New research published in the Advances in Science Journal is progressing by an international team of climate scientists. This presents the first realistic supercomputer simulation to solve the complex interactions between fire, vegetation, smoke and the atmosphere. The authors say that increasing greenhouse gas emissions is likely to increase by around 1.6% per Celsius due to hot spots in the eastern US, Kenya, Uganda and Argentina.

Locally, this could intensify wildfire outbreaks. However, the dominant drivers of growing regions burned by fires each year remain the change in the world’s humidity and the more rapid growth of vegetation that could serve as wildfire fuel.

This study further identifies areas where global warming is most prominent intensifying fires. Among the regions that exhibit the most powerful anthropogenic trends in biomass combustion are southern and central equatorial Africa, Madagascar, Australia, the Mediterranean and parts of North America in the western part of the country.

“Our results show that global warming of all degrees increases the average global region burned by fires by 14% each year. This is what is expected to affect ecosystems, infrastructure, human health and livelihoods. It could have a major impact.” Postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the research at the IBS Center for Climate Physics (now the Barcelona Supercomputing Center).

Furthermore, researchers also emphasize that more fires on a global scale will increase levels of fire smoke. Smoke plumes emerge from wildfires can affect air pollution and also lead to reduced infiltration of sunlight. The latter changes heat and infrared rays in the atmosphere.

“Our new computer model simulations show for the first time that a comprehensive earth system model can affect local temperatures by taking these effects into account. Fire areas and their downwind smoke plume expansion experiences slightly reduced warming on average due to the sun’s fine-dimming effect. “Someone says Christian Franzke, professor at IBS Climate Physics Centre at Pousan National University in Korea.

However, in addition to the reduction in sunlight (direct aerosol effect) described in new computer simulations, biomass burning aerosols can also alter cloud formation (indirect effect).

“This part is still somewhat uncertain and further research needs to be carried out to understand how fires affect clouds and then affect surface temperatures,” adds Professor Franzke. .

This study makes important advances in expressing the world interactions of climate lighting in current generation Earth System models, but also identifies important aspects that need further consideration. An important example is the extent to which Arctic wildfires increase in the warm world. In model simulations, the increase in Arctic wildfire activity is weaker than the trend observed in recent years.

“This may indicate that current climate models underestimate the risks of future Arctic wildfires, particularly in the prediction of aerosols released from wildfires. It will bring results.