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Increasing aerosol emissions from boreal biomass burning exacerbate Arctic warming

Nature Climate Change volume 14, pages 1275–1281 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Northern Hemisphere boreal region is undergoing rapid warming, leading to an upsurge in biomass burning. Previous studies have primarily focused on greenhouse gas emissions from these fires, whereas the associated biomass burning aerosols (BBAs) have received less attention. Here we use satellite-constrained modelling to assess the radiative effect of aerosols from boreal fires on the climate in the Arctic region. We find a substantial increase in boreal BBA emissions associated with warming over the past two decades, causing pronounced positive radiative effects during Arctic summer mostly due to increased solar absorption. At a global warming level of 1 °C above current temperatures, boreal BBA emissions are projected to increase 6-fold, further warming the Arctic and potentially negating the benefits of ambitious anthropogenic black carbon mitigation. Given the high sensitivity of boreal and Arctic fires to climate change, our results underscore the increasingly relevant role of BBAs in Arctic climate.

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Fig. 1: BBA emissions over boreal regions from 2000 to 2020.
Fig. 2: Interannual variability and trend of summer (JJA) AOD over the boreal and Arctic region.
Fig. 3: Modelled radiative effects of BBAs over the Arctic during summer on top of the atmosphere.
Fig. 4: Future prediction of boreal BBA emissions and the resulting aerosols over the Arctic.

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Data availability

The GFED4s emissions can be accessed from https://www.geo.vu.nl/~gwerf/GFED/GFED4. Other fire emissions can be obtained via Zenodo from https://zenodo.org/records/7229675 (ref. 62) for GFED500m, https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-fire-emissions-gfas?tab=overview for GFAS, https://feer.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/emissions/ for FEER, https://www2.acom.ucar.edu/modeling/finn-fire-inventory-ncar for FINN and https://portal.nccs.nasa.gov/datashare/iesa/aerosol/emissions/QFED/v2.4r6/ for QFED. Satellite data can be downloaded from https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/MYD08_D3 for MODIS observations, https://www.grasp-open.com/products/polder-data-release for POLDER data and https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpcp-daily-global-precipitation-climatology-project for Global Precipitation Climatology Project data. Aerosol Robotic Network data can be downloaded from https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/. CALIOP data can be accessed from https://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/. Meteorological data can be obtained from https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod11c3v006/ for MODIS surface temperature and from ERA5 (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels-monthly-means?tab=form) for other variables. The AeroCom model data can be accessed from https://aerocom.met.no. CMIP6 model data can be downloaded from https://aims2.llnl.gov/search/. In situ observations are obtained from EBAS (https://ebas.nilu.no/) and from the stated references in Supplementary Information. The outputs of the modified simulations are available via Zenodo at https://zenodo.org/records/13832721 (ref. 63). All the other data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the article and/or its Supplementary Information.

Code availability

The ECHAM-HAM model source code can be accessed at Redmine at https://redmine.hammoz.ethz.ch. The Community Intercomparison Suite (cis, http://cistools.net/) software was used to analyse model outputs, and the code for creating diagrams in this paper is available via Zenodo at https://zenodo.org/records/13832721 (ref. 63).

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund Program (Overseas) and Dutch Research Council (NWO; ALWGO.2018.052 and Vici scheme 016.160.324). The contribution of S.V. was funded by the European Research Council through a Consolidator grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101000987). The ECHAM-HAM simulations were carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of the SURF Cooperative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Qirui Zhong

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Nick Schutgens & Sander Veraverbeke

  3. School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Sander Veraverbeke

  4. Environmental Sciences Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Guido R. van der Werf

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  1. Qirui Zhong
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Contributions

Q.Z. and N.S. designed this study. Q.Z. conducted the data analysis, designed and performed the model experiments of ECHAM-HAM and wrote the paper. S.V. and G.R.v.d.W. provided important aspects on boreal fire dynamics. N.S., S.V. and G.R.v.d.W. provided scientific advice and valuable comments to revise the paper. All authors contributed to reviewing and improving the final version of the paper.

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Correspondence to Qirui Zhong.

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Nature Climate Change thanks Patricia DeRepentigny and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Tables 1–3 and Figs. 1–30.

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Zhong, Q., Schutgens, N., Veraverbeke, S. et al. Increasing aerosol emissions from boreal biomass burning exacerbate Arctic warming. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 1275–1281 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02176-y

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