Spatio-temporal patterns of extreme fires in Amazonian forests
- Fires are a fundamental part of the Earth System. In the last decades, they have been altering ecosystem structure, biogeochemical cycles and atmospheric composition with unprecedented rapidity. In this study, we implement a complex networks-based methodology to track individual fires over space and time. We focus on extreme fires-the 5% most intense fires-in the tropical forests of the Brazilian Legal Amazon over the period 2002-2019. We analyse the interannual variability in the number and spatial patterns of extreme forest fires in years with diverse climatic conditions and anthropogenic pressure to examine potential synergies between climate and anthropogenic drivers. We observe that major droughts, that increase forest flammability, co-occur with high extreme fire years but also that it is fundamental to consider anthropogenic activities to understand the distribution of extreme fires. Deforestation fires, fires escaping from managed lands, and other types of forest degradation and fragmentation provide the ignition sources forFires are a fundamental part of the Earth System. In the last decades, they have been altering ecosystem structure, biogeochemical cycles and atmospheric composition with unprecedented rapidity. In this study, we implement a complex networks-based methodology to track individual fires over space and time. We focus on extreme fires-the 5% most intense fires-in the tropical forests of the Brazilian Legal Amazon over the period 2002-2019. We analyse the interannual variability in the number and spatial patterns of extreme forest fires in years with diverse climatic conditions and anthropogenic pressure to examine potential synergies between climate and anthropogenic drivers. We observe that major droughts, that increase forest flammability, co-occur with high extreme fire years but also that it is fundamental to consider anthropogenic activities to understand the distribution of extreme fires. Deforestation fires, fires escaping from managed lands, and other types of forest degradation and fragmentation provide the ignition sources for fires to ignite in the forests. We find that all extreme forest fires identified are located within a 0.5-km distance from forest edges, and up to 56% of them are within a 1-km distance from roads (which increases to 73% within 5 km), showing a strong correlation that defines spatial patterns of extreme fires.…
Author details: | Ana Cano CrespoGND, Dominik TraxlGND, Kirsten ThonickeORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00164-3 |
ISSN: | 1951-6355 |
ISSN: | 1951-6401 |
Title of parent work (English): | European physical journal special topics |
Publisher: | Springer |
Place of publishing: | Berlin ; Heidelberg |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/06/24 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2024/03/01 |
Volume: | 230 |
Issue: | 14-15 |
Number of pages: | 12 |
First page: | 3033 |
Last Page: | 3044 |
Funding institution: | DFG/FAPESP [IRTG 1740/TRP 2011/50151-0]; BMBFFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF); Belmont Forum-funded project "CLIMAX: Climate services through knowledge co-production: A Euro-South American initiative for strengthening societal adaptation response to extreme events" [FKZ 01LP1610A]; State of Brandenburg (Germany) through the Ministry of Science and Education; [IRTG 1740/TRP] |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Umweltwissenschaften und Geographie |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 53 Physik / 530 Physik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |