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Cited by 66Fire effects on ecosystemsClimate variability and modelsPlant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

South American fires and their impacts on ecosystems increase with continued emissions

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Burton, Chantelle, Kelley, Douglas I., Jones, Chris D., Betts, Richard A., Cardoso, Manoel, Anderson, Liana·2022·Climate Resilience and Sustainability
DOI 10.1002/cli2.8
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Abstract

Unprecedented fire events in recent years are leading to a demand for improved understanding of how climate change is already affecting fires, and how this could change in the future. Increased fire activity in South America is one of the most concerning of all the recent events, given the potential impacts on local ecosystems and the global climate from the loss of large carbon stores under future socio‐environmental change. However, due to the complexity of interactions and feedbacks, and lack of complete representation of fire biogeochemistry in many climate models, there is currently low agreement on whether climate change will cause fires to become more or less frequent in the future, and what impact this will have on ecosystems. Here we use the latest climate simulations from the UK Earth System Model UKESM1 to understand feedbacks in fire, dynamic vegetation, and terrestrial carbon stores using the JULES land surface model, taking into account future scenarios of change in emissions and land use. Based on evaluation of model performance for the present day, we address the specific policy‐relevant question: how much fire‐induced carbon loss will there be over South America at different global warming levels in the future? We find that burned area and fire emissions are projected to increase in the future due to hotter and drier conditions, which leads to large reductions in carbon storage, especially when combined with increasing land‐use conversion. The model simulates a 30% loss of carbon at 4°C under the highest emission scenario, which could be reduced to 7% if temperature rise is limited to 1.5°C. Our results provide a critical assessment of ecosystem resilience under future climate change, and could inform the way fire and land‐use is managed in the future to reduce the most deleterious impacts of climate change.

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  • Other more recent models incorporating fire disturbances support a potential broad-scale transition of the Amazon forest, simulating a biomass loss of 30-40% under a high-emission scenario (SSP5-8.5 at 4 °C).

    “Other more recent models incorporating fire disturbances support a potential broad-scale transition of the Amazon forest, simulating a biomass loss of 30–40% under a high-emission scenario5,82 (SSP5–8.5 at 4 °C).”

    From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [82]

    Section 4.3 (Vegetation impacts; page unavailable) projects a 30% reduction in vegetation carbon under SSP5-8.5 at 4 °C. The Discussion says fire feedbacks can shift forest-dominated ecosystems toward grasses and shrubs, including impacts in Amazonia. But the 30% figure is for South America as a whole, not specifically the Amazon, and the paper does not give the claimed 30–40% range. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Cited by

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Authors
Burton, C., Kelley, D. I., Jones, C. D., Betts, R. A., Cardoso, M., & Anderson, L.
Affiliations
  • Met Office (GB)
  • UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (GB)
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (BR)
  • Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (BR)
Corresponding author
Burton, Chantelle
ORCID
Venue
Climate Resilience and Sustainability
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2021-07-31
Volume
1
Issue
1
ISSN
2692-4587 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1002/cli2.8
OpenAlex
W3142909853
Cited by
66
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 7
FWCI
4.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Climate Resilience and Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • NERC Open Research Archive (Natural Environment Research Council) (acceptedVersion)
  • Biblioteca Digital da Memória Científica do INPE (National Institute for Space Research) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Newton Fund
  • Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (2015/50122‐0, 2017/22269‐2, 2016/02018‐2)
  • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (314016/2009‐0, 442650/2018‐3, 309247/2016‐0)
  • Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (SGP‐HW 016)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
Keywords
fire emissions, climate change impacts on fire, terrestrial carbon storage, burned area, land use change, dynamic vegetation, UKESM1, JULES land surface model, emission scenarios, 1.5 °C warming target, ecosystem resilience

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