HR: 16:45h
AN: A24C-04    [Abstracts]
TI: A Method to Estimate Fire Emissions From Siberia (1998-2002)
AU: * Soja, A J
EM: a.j.soja@larc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Langley Research Center, 21 Langley Blvd, Hampton, VA 23681-2199 United States
AU: Sukhinin, A
EM: boss@ksc.krasn.ru
AF: Anatoly Sukhinin, Sukachev Forest Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Krasnojarsk, 660036 Russian Federation
AU: Stackhouse, P
EM: p.w.stackhouse@larc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Langley Research Center, 21 Langley Blvd, Hampton, VA 23681-2199 United States
AU: Cofer, R
EM: wrc3rd@buggs.net
AF: Terra Systems Research Inc., 2740 Linder lane, Willliamsburg, VA 23185 United States
AU: Shugart, H H
EM: hhs@virginia.edu
AF: University of Virginia, Clark Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22903 United States
AU: Conard, S
EM: sconard@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA Forest Service, 13 Falling Creek, Arlington, VA 20904 United States
AU: McRae, D
EM: dmcrae@nrcan.gc.ca
AF: National Resources Canada, 1219 Queen St. E, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont P6A 2E5 Canada
AB: Siberia is an essential region to consider when assessing disturbance-driven exchange of carbon between the biosphere and atmosphere. Siberia holds one of the largest pools of terrestrial carbon, and under current climate change scenarios, fire regimes are expected to intensify in terms of increases in fire frequency, extended fire season length, increased fire severity and increases in the amount of area burned. We present a method that uses satellite-derived area burned products, an ecosystems map and inventories of the carbon stored in the biomass and soils of Siberia to estimate direct carbon and species-specific emissions for 1998 through 2002. Emissions models are spatially explicit, therefore emissions released are specific to their unique ecoregions. Carbon consumption estimates range from 3.4 to 75.4 t C ha-1 for 23 ecoregions, each of which include three levels of severity. To provide a range of current and potential estimates, three scenarios are modeled that span from the traditional scenario estimate of 116 Tg C in 1999 (6.9 M ha burned) to the extreme scenario estimate of 520 Tg C in 2002 (11.2 M ha burned), which represent 5 and 20%, respectively, of the total global carbon emissions from forest and grassland burning. Mean standard scenario estimates of CO2 (555 1031 Tg), CO (43 80 Tg), CH4 (2.4 4.5 Tg), TNMHC (2.2 4.1 Tg), and carbonaceous aerosols (4.6 8.6 Tg) represent 10, 15, 19, 12 and 26%, respectively, of the global estimates from forest and grassland burning. Our results highlight the importance of ecosystem-specific carbon consumption estimates and fire severity, which can affect total direct carbon emissions by as much as 50%. Additionally in extreme fire years, total direct carbon emissions can be 37-41% greater than in normal fire years. The models also show that accounting for increased smoldering combustion in soils and peatlands results in increases in CO, CH4, and TNMHC and decreases in CO2 emitted from fire events.
DE: 1610 Atmosphere (0315, 0325)
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical processes (4805)
DE: 1640 Remote sensing
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
DE: 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting