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Evolution of Fire Activities in a Geoengineered Climate

Presentation Date
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 9:00am - Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 12:30pm
Location
McCormick Place - Poster Hall, Hall - A
Authors

Author

Abstract

Wildfires have become serious environmental and societal issues, causing great property losses and endangering human lives and ecosystems. Fire activities can greatly affect terrestrial ecosystems and regional climate change and further affect global climate change through perturbing carbon cycles. With rising surface temperatures, enhanced vapor pressure deficits, and lower soil moisture projected by Earth system models (ESMs), longer drought periods suggest the increasing probability of fires in the future. Multiple climate intervention strategies have been proposed to offset further warming brought on by elevated anthropogenic emissions, which induce a higher potential for adverse environmental impacts including fires. However, as vegetation productivity increases due to CO2 fertilization in a cooler climate created through solar radiation management, biomass that serves as available fuel load increases in an intervened climate, causing a more severe burning activity once fires occur. This study will explore fire-related variables from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) and the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios. We will discuss how fire activities evolve from the past to the future climate both at global and ecoregional scales.

Category
Global Environmental Change
Funding Program Area(s)
Additional Resources:
NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center)