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| Titel |
Fire in CMIP5: sensitivity to global climate change |
| VerfasserIn |
Silvia Kloster, Gitta Lasslop |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250092276
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-6607.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Fire is the most important disturbance process for vegetation impacting the land
carbon cycle globally. Only recently fire models have been developed that are able
to represent the important role of fire for vegetation dynamics and land carbon
cycling on that scale. Here, we investigate how fire is represented in Earth System
Models (ESMs) that participated in the 5th Climate Model Intercomparison Project
(CMIP5).
Burned area and carbon emissions from fire are among the variables reported in CMIP5.
ESMs from CMIP5 use common simulation and output protocols, enabling direct
comparisons between models. For this study ESMs were selected from the CMIP5 repository
based on the availability of burned area and/or carbon emissions from fires for the historical
and the rcp2.6/4.5/8.5 simulations. Sensitivities to global climate changes are, in
addition, analyzed using the CMIP5 idealized simulations with 1% increase in
atmospheric CO2 concentrations up to 4x CO2 present day atmospheric concentration
conditions. This simulation is accompanied by two simulations that allow for the
separation of the overall climate change impact on fire occurrence in those caused
through CO2 affecting only the climate and those caused through CO2 fertilisation
alone.
All ESMs analyzed show an increase in fire carbon emissions with climate change for the
1% CO2 simulation. Three out of 4 ESMs show a decrease in fire carbon emissions when
climate is the only controlling factor. CO2 fertilisation increases fire carbon emissions and
even overrides the influence of climate leading to increasing fire emissions in the simulation
where both climate and fertilization effects are accounted for. One model, however, shows a
different behaviour. Here, fire carbon emissions increase as a response to changes
in climate alone, whereas the CO2 fertilisation leads to a slight decrease in fire
carbon emissions. This model is the only model including nitrogen as a limiting
nutrient in the analyzed ESMs simulation, which might explain the different behavior. |
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