The impact of boreal forest fire on climate warming
Open accessAbstract
We report measurements and analysis of a boreal forest fire, integrating the effects of greenhouse gases, aerosols, black carbon deposition on snow and sea ice, and postfire changes in surface albedo. The net effect of all agents was to increase radiative forcing during the first year (34 ± 31 Watts per square meter of burned area), but to decrease radiative forcing when averaged over an 80-year fire cycle (â2.3 ± 2.2 Watts per square meter) because multidecadal increases in surface albedo had a larger impact than fire-emitted greenhouse gases. This result implies that future increases in boreal fire may not accelerate climate warming.
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Increased burning in boreal forests could potentially provide a positive feedback on global warming.
“Increased burning in boreal forests could potentially provide a positive feedback on global warming through the release of greenhouse gases and particulates (Kasischke, 2000; Randerson et al., 2006) and the mobilization of vast quantities of carbon currently stored in frozen soils (Zimov et al., 2006).”
From The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth (2011) · cites this paper as Randerson et al., 2006
Fire could slow regional warming through alteration of ecosystem energy balances by changing albedo.
“Alternatively, fire could slow regional warming through the alteration of ecosystem energy balances by changing albedo; for example, reduced tree cover exposes proportionally more snow, thus increasing reflectance (Randerson et al., 2006; Euskirchen et al., 2009).”
From The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth (2011) · cites this paper as Randerson et al., 2006
Cites
The role of fire in the boreal carbon budget
Harden, J. W., Trumbore, S. E., Stocks, B. J., Hirsch, A., Gower, S. T., O'neill, K. P., & Kasischke, E. S. (2000) · Global Change Biology · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2486.2000.06019.x · Cited by 387 · see citing works
Self-citationEvaluating the influence of different vegetation biomes on the global climate
Snyder, P. K., Delire, C., & Foley, J. A. (2004) · Climate Dynamics · doi:10.1007/s00382-004-0430-0 · Cited by 299 · see citing works
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The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth
Bowman, D. M. J. S., Balch, J., Artaxo, P., Bond, W. J., Cochrane, M. A., D’Antonio, C. M., DeFries, R., Johnston, F. H., Keeley, J. E., Krawchuk, M. A., et al. (2011) · Journal of Biogeography · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02595.x · Cited by 1,230 · see citing works
“…burning in boreal forests could potentially provide a positive feedback on global warming through the release of greenhouse gases and particulates (Kasischke, 2000; Randerson et al., 2006) and the mobilization of vast quantities of carbon currently stored in frozen soils (Zimov et al., 2006).”
BackgroundSelf-citationTrends in global wildfire potential in a changing climate
Liu, Y., Stanturf, J., & Goodrick, S. (2010) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.002 · Cited by 791 · see citing works
Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: an assessment
Creutzig, F., Ravindranath, N. H., Berndes, G., Bolwig, S., Bright, R., Cherubini, F., Chum, H., Corbera, E., Delucchi, M., Faaij, A., et al. (2015) · GCB Bioenergy · doi:10.1111/gcbb.12205 · Cited by 752 · see citing works
CHERUBINI, F., PETERS, G. P., BERNTSEN, T., STRØMMAN, A. H., & HERTWICH, E. (2011) · GCB Bioenergy · doi:10.1111/j.1757-1707.2011.01102.x · Cited by 645 · see citing works
“The same approach has been considered in the past to predict the contribution to climate change of CO2 emissions from a forest fire (Randerson et al., 2006).”
BackgroundLocal Arctic Air Pollution: A Neglected but Serious Problem
Schmale, J., Arnold, S. R., Law, K. S., Thorp, T., Anenberg, S., Simpson, W. R., Mao, J., & Pratt, K. A. (2018) · Earth's Future · doi:10.1029/2018ef000952 · Cited by 219 · see citing works
“First, a major fraction (60–90%) of fuel consumption in boreal forest fires comes from carbon stored in boreal soils (Genet et al., 2018; Kasischke et al., 2005; Kasischke & Hoy, 2012; Mack et al., 2011; Randerson et al., 2006; Turetsky et al., 2010).”
BackgroundForkel, M., Andela, N., Harrison, S. P., Lasslop, G., van Marle, M., Chuvieco, E., Dorigo, W., Forrest, M., Hantson, S., Heil, A., et al. (2019) · Biogeosciences · doi:10.5194/bg-16-57-2019 · Cited by 184 · see citing works
“We then compared the data-and model-derived emergent relationships and sensitivities both globally and on a per grid cell basis.”
Guest, G., Bright, R. M., Cherubini, F., & Strømman, A. H. (2013) · Environmental Impact Assessment Review · doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2013.05.002 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
- Authors
- Randerson, J. T., Liu, H., Flanner, M. G., Chambers, S. D., Jin, Y., Hess, P. G., Pfister, G., Mack, M. C., Treseder, K. K., Welp, L. R., Chapin, F. S., Harden, J. W., Goulden, M. L., Lyons, E., Neff, J. C., Schuur, E. A. G., & Zender, C. S.
- Affiliations
- NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
- Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
- Corresponding author
- Randerson, J. T.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2006-11-17
- Volume
- 314
- Issue
- 5802
- Pages
- 1130-1132
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2133707588
- Cited by
- 896
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 60 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 78 · 2021: 58 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 44 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 54 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 49 · 2012: 44
- FWCI
- 26.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- escholarship.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- 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 › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Keywords
- boreal forest fires, radiative forcing, greenhouse gases, aerosols, black carbon deposition, surface albedo, fire cycle, global warming
- MeSH terms
- Fires, Trees, Greenhouse Effect, Ecosystem
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