Mastodawn

anlomedad Jul 2, 2023

I think, most #boreal forest will burn during adaption to an ever-new environment until a new equilibrium is found long after #CO2zero.
Maybe, we can use a progress bar toward 100% area burned?
"Installing climate change... please wait while nature updates its registry..."

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arthurgessler Jul 2, 2023

@anlomedad I think there is some hope (but it will certainly depend on how we continue to change the climate) as boreal forests are fire adapted and have also in the past been burning regularly (and even „need“ fires). The main problem is the frequency of fires - if the same patch burns to early again (and that might happen when it gets drier/warmer) regime shifts will happen and another ecosystem will establish.

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anlomedad Jul 2, 2023

@arthurgessler
Thanks, Arthur,
Don't have data at hand for area burnt in boreal forests but
for boreal forest in Asia there seems to be a strong correlation between temperatures in JuneJulyAugust and (emissions from) fires. (It's not [yet] from change in precipitation, I'm sure, because I looked at it, too.) And temperatures are going up.

I don't know for sure that CO2 emissions from fires say something about the area burnt in a particular year. But I assume it does.

The more yellowisch bars are CO2 emissions from North America boreal forest fires. I didn't add a temperature anomaly here out of Sunday laziness.

sources: ECMWF Era5 https://climatereanalyzer.org/reanalysis/monthly_tseries/
and https://www.geo.vu.nl/~gwerf/GFED/GFED4/tables/

Climate Reanalyzer

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arthurgessler

@anlomedad thanks that looks really convincing and yes the temperature is certainly an important factor - for precipitation it might be more complicated - in Australia (Mediterranean/temperate) high fire risk is often associated with some moist years (build up of biomass = fuel) and then a hot dry year to start the fire.