Global rise in forest fire emissions linked to climate change in the extratropics
Matthew W. Jones, Sander Veraverbeke, Niels Andela, Stefan H. Doerr, Crystal A. Kolden, Guilherme Mataveli, M. Lucrecia Pettinari, Corinne Le Quéré, Thais M. Rosan, Guido R. van der Werf, Dave van Wees, John T. Abatzoglou
Abstract
Climate change increases fire-favorable weather in forests, but fire trends are also affected by multiple other controlling factors that are difficult to untangle. We use machine learning to systematically group forest ecoregions into 12 global forest pyromes, with each showing distinct sensitivities to climatic, human, and vegetation controls. This delineation revealed that rapidly increasing forest fire emissions in extratropical pyromes, linked to climate change, offset declining emissions in tropical pyromes during 2001 to 2023. Annual emissions tripled in one extratropical pyrome due to increases in fire-favorable weather, compounded by increased forest cover and productivity. This contributed to a 60% increase in forest fire carbon emissions from forest ecoregions globally. Our results highlight the increasing vulnerability of forests and their carbon stocks to fire disturbance under climate change.