Balzter_2005_GRL_Arctic_Oscillation_Siberian_fires.pdf (118.18 kB)
Impact of the Arctic Oscillation pattern on interannual forest fire variability in Central Siberia
journal contribution
posted on 2007-11-19, 15:38 authored by Heiko Balzter, France F. Gerard, Charles T. George, Clare S. Rowland, T. E. Jupp, I. McCallum, Anatoly Shvidenko, S. Nilsson, A. Sukhinin, Alexander Onuchin, Christiane SchmulliusRussia's forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle. Because of their scale and interannual variability, forest fires can change the direction of the net carbon flux over Eurasia. 2002 and 2003 were the first two consecutive years in the atmospheric record in which the carbon content rose by more than 2 ppm per year. Northern Hemisphere fires could be the reason. We show that 2002 and 2003 were the two years with the largest fire extent in Central Siberia since 1996 using new measurements of burned forest area in Central Siberia derived from remote sensing. To quantify the relationship between Siberian forest fires and climate variability, we compare these measurements with time-series of large-scale climatic indices for the period 1992–2003. This paper is amongst the first studies that analyse statistical relationships between interannual variability of forest fires in Russia and climate indices. Significant relationships of annual burned forest area with the Arctic Oscillation, summer temperatures, precipitation, and the El Niño index NINO4 were found (p < 0.1). In contrast, we find no significant relation with the El Niño indices NINO1, NINO3 or SOI (p > 0.1). Interannual forest fire variability in Central Siberia could best be explained by a combination of the Arctic Oscillation index and regional summer temperatures (r2 = 0.80).
History
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2005, 32 (14), pp.L14709.1-L14709.4Version
- VoR (Version of Record)
Published in
Geophysical Research LettersPublisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)issn
0094-8276Copyright date
2005Available date
2007-11-19Publisher DOI
Publisher version
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL022526/abstractLanguage
enAdministrator link
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