HR: 1330h
AN: A22C-1088    [PDF]
TI: Trace gas emissions from boreal forest fires - 1995 to 2002
AU: * Kasischke, E S
EM: ekasisch@geog.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Geography 2181 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: Hyer, E J
EM: ehyer@glue.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Geography 2181 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: French, N H
EM: nancy.french@altarum.org
AF: Altarum, PO Box 134001, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
AU: Sukhinin, A I
EM: boss@ksc.krasn.ru
AF: Sukachev Forest Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyars Russian Federation
AU: Hewson, J H
EM: jhewsons@glue.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Geography 2181 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: Stocks, B J
EM: bstocks@nrcan.gc.ca
AF: Canadian Forest Service, 1219 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A 2E5 Canada
AB: A new data set on area burned in eastern Russia developed from satellite observations has allowed us to develop estimates of trace gas emissions from boreal forest fires for the period of 1995 to 2002. This data set contains information on emissions on a 1 by 1 degree grid at weekly time steps and therefore can be used as a source term for specific fire events in the boreal forest region. During the study period, an average of 9.8 million ha (Mha)/year burned, ranging between 3.0 Mha and 15.6 Mha. In this paper, we will present the results of an approach developed to estimate emissions by merging area burned information with data sets depicting the spatial distribution of fuels and using models of combustion efficiency based on expected fire type (crown, surface, ground) that varied during the growing season. We estimate that an average of 209 Tg of carbon/year (range of 51 to 371 Tg) were released by boreal fires, including 68 Tg/year of CO (range of 50 to 122 Tg). Most of the emissions (80%) are from fires in Russia. There are also clear seasonal patterns to the emissions signature. During low fire years, there is a bi-modal seasonal distribution, with 25% of seasonal emissions occurring in both May and July. During large fire years, while the early season peak still occurs, the majority of seasonal emissions (40%) occur during large fires in August.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
DE: 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting