EGU23-6286
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6286
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Hysteresis of fire-prone weather to CO2 forcing

Jin-Soo Kim1, Hyo-Jeong Kim1, and Soon-Il An2
Jin-Soo Kim et al.
  • 1Low-Carbon and Climate Impact Research Centre at the School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (jinsoo.kim@cityu.edu.hk)
  • 2Department of Atmospheric Sciences and Irreversible Climate Change Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea

CO2 emission from biomass burning (BB) is one of the essential elements of the global carbon budget, with its annual mean of about 2.0 PgC/year equivalent to 15 % of 2020 fossil fuel emissions. However, while a global increase in fire-prone weather is projected alongside climate change, a quantitative understanding of how much carbon will further be released due to increased fires is highly limited, which could result in large uncertainty in meeting the net zero target. Thus, in this study, we evaluate future changes in fire-prone weather based on the fire weather index (FWI) and estimate the potential fire-induced emissions on a global scale that could be induced by climate change. To this end, 28 ensembles of idealized CO2 reduction simulations with the CESM climate model were analyzed. The results show that when CO2 in the atmosphere is doubled (2xCO2) from 367 ppm by 1 % per year, the additional emission due to increased fire weather could reach about 1.7 PgC/year, which corresponds to 82% of the current BB emission. Moreover, even if the atmospheric CO2 concentration further peaks and is reduced back to 2xCO2, the lagged response of the climate system can cause fire-prone weather and its resulting C emissions to remain higher than its previous state in many countries. These results highlight that more focus is required on the climate-fire-carbon feedback not only for more accurate future predictions but also for achieving net zero emissions in each country through a proper wildfire management strategy.

How to cite: Kim, J.-S., Kim, H.-J., and An, S.-I.: Hysteresis of fire-prone weather to CO2 forcing, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6286, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6286, 2023.