The Frequency and Fate of Understory Forest Fires in Amazonia
Abstract
Fires for deforestation or agricultural management frequently escape their intended boundaries and burn standing Amazon forests. The extent and frequency of understory forest fires are critical to assess forest carbon emissions and the long-term legacy of understory fires in Amazonia. Patterns of understory fire activity under current climate conditions also offer a blueprint for potential changes in Amazon forests under scenarios of future climate and land use. Here, we estimated of the extent and frequency of understory forest fires for the entire arc of deforestation in southern Amazonia using a time series of annual Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Understory forest fires burned more than 80,000 km2 during 1999-2010. Fires were widespread along the southern and eastern extents of Amazon forests during the four years with highest fire activity (1999, 2005, 2007, 2010). The interannual variability in understory fires offered new insights into fire-climate dynamics in Amazonia over a range of temporal scales, based on the combination of burned area, MODIS active fire detections, and reanalysis climate data. Initial fire exposure reduces aboveground carbon stocks, and frequent fires are one possible mechanism for long-term changes the structure of Amazon forests. Repeated burning was concentrated in southeastern Amazonia, and >95% of all repeated fires occurred in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Pará. Forests that burned two or more times during this period accounted for 16% of understory fire activity. Finally, deforestation of burned forests was rare, suggesting that forest degradation from understory fires was an independent source of carbon emissions during this period. Modeling the time scales of carbon loss and recovery in burned forests is therefore critical to estimate the net carbon emissions from these fires. The results of this study suggest that understory fires operate as a large-scale edge effect in Amazonia, as human ignitions expand the influence of land use activity beyond the extent of deforestation activity.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.B23F0518M
- Keywords:
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- 0428 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Carbon cycling;
- 0468 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Natural hazards;
- 0480 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Remote sensing;
- 1632 GLOBAL CHANGE / Land cover change