EGU24-11432, updated on 09 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11432
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Northern high latitude peat fires: from lab to modelling 

Dimitra Tarasi1,2, Eirini Boleti1,2, Katie Blackford2,3, Matthew Kasoar2,3, Emmanouil Grillakis1,2, Guillermo Rein2,4, Hafizha Mulyasih2,4, and Apostolos Voulgarakis1,2,3
Dimitra Tarasi et al.
  • 1School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece (dtarasi@tuc.gr)
  • 2Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, Imperial College London, London, UK
  • 3Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK
  • 4Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

Climate warming is occurring most rapidly at high latitudes, heightening the vulnerability of carbon-rich peatlands to fire. Northern peatlands comprise the largest terrestrial carbon store, and exert a net cooling effect on the climate. Warmer and drier conditions due to the anticipated climate change are expected to contribute substantially to increased fire severity and frequency in the northern high latitudes, potentially shifting peatlands from being carbon sinks to being greenhouse gas emission sources. Therefore, peat fires, which are considered the largest and most persistent fires on Earth, can significantly impact the global carbon cycle, atmospheric composition, climate, air quality, and human health. Representing peatland fire feedbacks to climate in Earth system models is essential for accurately predicting the future of the climate system. Here, we present the first steps of an effort to distill lab results on peat burning and emissions into global fire modelling. Since peat moisture content and the depth of burn have been experimentally proved to be critical for the representation of peat fires, we aim to incorporate those mechanisms into a global model functionality. More specifically, we aim to represent the mechanistic understanding of the ignition and spread of peat fires in INFERNO-peat, the peat module of the JULES-INFERNO global fire model. To assess the added value of our updated model, we compare the simulated burnt area and carbon emissions with observation-based products. As boreal regions remain a big mystery for the future of our planet, our improved model representation of peat fires in northern high latitudes contributes to a better understanding of future atmospheric composition, radiative forcing and climate. 

How to cite: Tarasi, D., Boleti, E., Blackford, K., Kasoar, M., Grillakis, E., Rein, G., Mulyasih, H., and Voulgarakis, A.: Northern high latitude peat fires: from lab to modelling , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-11432, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11432, 2024.

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