CO2 warning over wildfires
Friday, 02 Nov 2007 17:41
Wildfires contribute to carbon emissions
Wildfires such as the recent blazes in California complicate carbon emission-monitoring and modelling efforts, new research has warned.
The report published in the journal Carbon Balance and Management says severe wildfires can contribute to carbon emissions as much as vehicles in some US states.
Christine Wiedinmyer of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research and Jason Neff of the University of Colorado studied satellite imaging data to identify the extent of the fires between 2002 and 2006.
Output of carbon dioxide (CO2) was based on the degree of forest cover in a particular area.
The report said that typical annual emissions from five are about five per cent of the manmade total for the US.
But during major fires in south-western and western US the proportion of fire contributions to CO2 emissions can increase dramatically.
"A striking implication of very large wildfires is that a severe fire season lasting only one or two months can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from the entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state," the study's authors write.
This is likely to make accounting for carbon sources and sinks difficult, as well as creating problems in assessing trends with current remote sensing technologies.
In a warning for the future, Dr Wiedinmyer concluded: "There is a significant potential for additional net release of carbon from the forests of the United States due to changing fire dynamics in the coming decades."