Future fire – still a wide open climate question

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.csiro.au/news/Future-fire.html

Media Release

Future fire – still a wide open climate question
Reference: 11/66

How the frequency and intensity of wildfires and intentional biomass burning will change in a future climate requires closer scientific attention, according to CSIRO’s Dr Melita Keywood.

5 July 2011

Dr Keywood said it is likely that fire – one of nature’s primary carbon-cycling mechanisms – will become an increasingly important driver of atmospheric change as the world warms.

“Understanding changes in the occurrence and magnitude of fires will be an important challenge for which there needs to be a clear focus on the tools and methodologies available to scientists to predict fire occurrence in a changing climate.”

She said the link between long-term climate change and short-term variability in fire activity is complex, with multiple and potentially unknown feedbacks.

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Dr Keywood’s presentation was based on a paper, Fire in the Air – Biomass burning impacts in a changing climate, just published in the journal Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, co-authored by scientists from senior international atmospheric research agencies in the Australia, the US, Norway, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

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