10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Climate System Responses to the Interactions between Wildfires and Climate
AOXING ZHANG, Yuhang Wang, Yufei Zou, Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract Number: 1621 Working Group: Aerosol Modeling
Abstract While the effects of climate on wildfires and those of wildfires on climate have been studied in the past, little is known how the feedbacks between wildfires and climate affect the climate system behaviors. For example, large amounts of aerosols released by wildfires change regional climate through direct radiative forcing and aerosol-cloud processes. The resulting regional climate changes also regulate the occurrence frequency, magnitude, and duration of wildfires. Similar interactive processes also take place for fire-induced land surface and vegetation changes. These interactions have not yet been carefully studied because current climate models lack the capability of simulating the interactions between wildfires and climate. We have developed the REgion-Specific ecosystem feedback Fire (RESFire) model and implemented it into the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which allows us to examine the responses of wildfires and climate to their interactions. We find that wildfire-climate interactions due to aerosols tend to decrease the global precipitation, although regional variations in magnitude and sign are large. The western United States, for example, shows a clear drying effect. While the aerosol effects tend to be short-term (days-weeks), the climate responses can be inter-seasonal and interannual. The fire induced land cover changes, the effects of which last much longer (years), also affect the climate system behavior in short term. We examine further the differences of wildfires and climate interactions at present to the future projections based on the RCP4.5 scenario and find that the system responses differ as the climate warms.