Showing papers by "Douglas C. Morton published in 2008"

Climate regulation of fire emissions and deforestation in equatorial Asia

Abstract: Drainage of peatlands and deforestation have led to large-scale fires in equatorial Asia, affecting regional air quality and global concentrations of greenhouse gases. Here we used several sources of satellite data with biogeochemical and atmospheric modeling to better understand and constrain fire emissions from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea during 2000–2006. We found that average fire emissions from this region [128 ± 51 (1σ) Tg carbon (C) year−1, T = 1012] were comparable to fossil fuel emissions. In Borneo, carbon emissions from fires were highly variable, fluxes during the moderate 2006 El Nino more than 30 times greater than those during the 2000 La Nina (and with a 2000–2006 mean of 74 ± 33 Tg C yr−1). Higher rates of forest loss and larger areas of peatland becoming vulnerable to fire in drought years caused a strong nonlinear relation between drought and fire emissions in southern Borneo. Fire emissions from Sumatra showed a positive linear trend, increasing at a rate of 8 Tg C year−2 (approximately doubling during 2000–2006). These results highlight the importance of including deforestation in future climate agreements. They also imply that land manager responses to expected shifts in tropical precipitation may critically determine the strength of climate–carbon cycle feedbacks during the 21st century.

Agricultural intensification increases deforestation fire activity in Amazonia

Abstract: Fire-driven deforestation is the major source of carbon emissions from Amazonia. Recent expansion of mechanized agriculture in forested regions of Amazonia has increased the average size of deforested areas, but related changes in fire dynamics remain poorly characterized. We estimated the contribution of fires from the deforestation process to total fire activity based on the local frequency of active fire detections from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors. High-confidence fire detections at the same ground location on 2 or more days per year are most common in areas of active deforestation, where trunks, branches, and stumps can be piled and burned many times before woody fuels are depleted. Across Amazonia, high-frequency fires typical of deforestation accounted for more than 40% of the MODIS fire detections during 2003-2007. Active deforestation frontiers in Bolivia and the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Para, and Rondonia contributed 84% of these high-frequency fires during this period. Among deforested areas, the frequency and timing of fire activity vary according to postclearing land use. Fire usage for expansion of mechanized crop production in Mato Grosso is more intense and more evenly distributed throughout the dry season than forest clearing for cattle ranching (4.6 vs. 1.7 fire days per deforested area, respectively), even for clearings >200 ha in size. Fires for deforestation may continue for several years, increasing the combustion completeness of cropland deforestation to nearly 100% and pasture deforestation to 50-90% over 1-3-year timescales typical of forest conversion. Our results demonstrate that there is no uniform relation between satellite-based fire detections and carbon emissions. Improved understanding of deforestation carbon losses in Amazonia will require models that capture interannual variation in the deforested area that contributes to fire activity and variable combustion completeness of individual clearings as a function of fire frequency or other evidence of postclearing land use. © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing.

Fire-related carbon emissions from land use transitions in southern Amazonia

Abstract: Various land-use transitions in the tropics contribute to atmospheric carbon emissions, including forest conversion for small-scale farming, cattle ranching, and production of commodities such as soya and palm oil. These transitions involve fire as an effective and inexpensive means for clearing. We applied the DECAF (DEforestation CArbon Fluxes) model to Mato Grosso, Brazil to estimate fire emissions from various land-use transitions during 2001–2005. Fires associated with deforestation contributed 67 Tg C/yr (17 and 50 Tg C/yr from conversion to cropland and pasture, respectively), while conversion of savannas and existing cattle pasture to cropland contributed 17 Tg C/yr and pasture maintenance fires 6 Tg C/yr. Large clearings (>100 ha/yr) contributed 67% of emissions but comprised only 10% of deforestation events. From a policy perspective, results imply that intensification of agricultural production on already-cleared land and policies to discourage large clearings would reduce the major sources of emissions from fires in this region.