Increase in Arctic Oscillations explains most interannual variability in Russia’s wildfires

Frontiers in Forests and Global Change

Forests and Global Change

Andrei G. Lapenis¹  Leonid N. Yurganov² 

[1] Department of Geography and Planning, University at Albany, Albany, NY, United States;Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD, United States;

关键词: wildfires;    carbon emissions;    fossil fuel;    carbon sequestration;    carbon dioxide equivalent;   

DOI  :  10.3389/ffgc.2023.1188057

 received in 2023-03-16, accepted in 2023-08-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Over the past two decades, the escalating emissions of greenhouse gases from boreal wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere have drawn significant attention, underscoring an unprecedented wildfire season in 2021. Our calculations indicate that between 2002 and 2020, wildfires in Russia released approximately 726 ± 280 Tg CO2eqv yr−1. This aligns closely with similar estimates derived from remote sensing data, far surpassing the earlier approximations found in the Russian National Inventory Report (NIR) by a factor of 2 to 3. Notably, in 2021 alone, Russia’s wildfires emitted an exceptionally high amount of 1,700 Tg CO2eqv, exceeding the carbon emissions from the country’s fossil fuel consumption. Consequently, this situation led to an almost complete counterbalance of carbon assimilation by Russian forests. Our analysis attributes over 50% of the variation in wildfire frequency between 2002 and 2021 to shifts in the Arctic Oscillation (AO). This suggests a potential for utilizing AO as a predictive variable for wildfires. It’s noteworthy that the AO itself is influenced by the sustained regression of Arctic sea-ice. From this, it can be inferred that in the foreseeable future, Russian forests might undergo a transition from their role as carbon sinks to the potential net contributors of carbon to the atmosphere.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Lapenis and Yurganov.