Wildfires devastate the land they burn, and they are also warming the
planet
Date:
March 18, 2022
Source:
Cell Press
Summary:
The 2021 wildfire season broke records globally, leaving land
charred from California to Siberia. The risk of fire is growing,
and a recent report warned that wildfires are on track to increase
50% by 2050. These fires destroy homes, plant life, and animals
as they burn, but the risk doesn't stop there. Researchers detail
how the brown carbon released by burning biomass in the northern
hemisphere is accelerating warming in the Arctic and warn that
this could lead to even more wildfires in the future.
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The 2021 wildfire season broke records globally, leaving land charred
from California to Siberia. The risk of fire is growing, and a report
published by the UN last month warned that wildfires are on track to
increase 50% by 2050.
These fires destroy homes, plant life, and animals as they burn,
but the risk doesn't stop there. In the journal One Earthon March 18, researchersdetail how the brown carbon released by burning biomass in
the northern hemisphere is accelerating warming in the Arctic and warn
that this could lead to even more wildfires in the future.
========================================================================== Blazing wildfires are accompanied by vast plumes of brown smoke, made
up of particles of brown carbon suspended in the air. This smoke poses
health hazards, and can even block out the summer sun, and researchers suspected that it might also be contributing to global warming.
In 2017, the Chinese icebreaker vessel Xue Longheaded for the Arctic
Ocean to examine which aerosols were floating around in the pristine
Arctic air and identify their sources. The scientists on the vessel were particularly curious about how brown carbon released by wildfires was
affecting the climate and how its warming effects compared to those
of denser black carbon from high- temperature fossil fuel burning,
the second most powerful warming agent after carbon dioxide.
Their results showed that brown carbon was contributing to warming
more than previously thought. "To our surprise, observational analyses
and numerical simulations show that the warming effect of brown carbon
aerosols over the Arctic is up to about 30% of that of black carbon," says senior author Pingqing Fu, an atmospheric chemist at Tianjin University.
In the last 50 years, the Arctic has been warming at a rate three times
that of the rest of the planet, and it appears that wildfires are helping
to drive this discrepancy. The researchers found that brown carbon from
burning biomass was responsible for at least twice as much warming as
brown carbon from fossil fuel burning.
Like black carbon and carbon dioxide, brown carbon warms the planet by absorbing solar radiation. Since warming temperatures have been linked to
the rise in wildfires in recent years, this leads to a positive feedback
loop. "The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or
regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of
wildfires," says Fu.
"Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent." For future
research, Fu and his colleagues plan to investigate how wildfires are
changing aerosol composition from sources other than brown carbon.
Specifically, they are interested in the effect of fires on bioaerosols,
which originate from plants and animals and can contain living organisms, including pathogens. In the meantime, Fu urges that attention be focused
on wildfire mitigation. "Our findings highlight just how important it
is to control wildfires," he says.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cell_Press. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Siyao Yue, Jialei Zhu, Shuang Chen, Qiaorong Xie, Wei Li, Linjie
Li, Hong
Ren, Sihui Su, Ping Li, Hao Ma, Yanbing Fan, Borong Cheng, Libin Wu,
Junjun Deng, Wei Hu, Lujie Ren, Lianfang Wei, Wanyu Zhao, Yu Tian,
Xiaole Pan, Yele Sun, Zifa Wang, Fengchang Wu, Cong-Qiang Liu,
Hang Su, Joyce E.
Penner, Ulrich Po"schl, Meinrat O. Andreae, Yafang Cheng,
Pingqing Fu.
Brown carbon from biomass burning imposes strong circum-Arctic
warming.
One Earth, 2022; 5 (3): 293 DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2022.02.006 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220318110247.htm
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