Journal
SCIENCE ADVANCES
Volume 7, Issue 22, Pages -Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc1379
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Funding
- Geosciences Directorate of the NSF [AGS-1702814, 1702830, 0538416, 0538427, 0839093]
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences [1702830] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Research shows that historical fire activity in the Southern Hemisphere surpassed present-day levels, and over the past century, overall fire emissions in the Southern Hemisphere have decreased by possibly 30%, likely due to rapid expansion of land use. This decreasing trend in fire emissions largely offsets the cooling effect of increasing aerosols from fossil fuel and biofuel sources in the past century.
Fire plays a pivotal role in shaping terrestrial ecosystems and the chemical composition of the atmosphere and thus influences Earth's climate. The trend and magnitude of fire activity over the past few centuries are controversial, which hinders understanding of preindustrial to present-day aerosol radiative forcing. Here, we present evidence from records of 14 Antarctic ice cores and 1 central Andean ice core, suggesting that historical fire activity in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) exceeded present-day levels. To understand this observation, we use a global fire model to show that overall SH fire emissions could have declined by 30% over the 20th century, possibly because of the rapid expansion of land use for agriculture and animal production in middle to high latitudes. Radiative forcing calculations suggest that the decreasing trend in SH fire emissions over the past century largely compensates for the cooling effect of increasing aerosols from fossil fuel and biofuel sources.
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