Radiative forcing due to shifting southern African fire regimes

Landscape fires emit climate-influencing greenhouse gases and aerosols. The vast majority of landscape fire emissions originate from tropical savannas, especially in Africa. During the fire season climatic conditions change, and fires burning later consume drier vegetation and occur in drier weather conditions than earlier fires. Previous studies have shown that it is possible to reduce emissions of some greenhouse gases (CH4 and N2O) by using “prescribed” fires, i.e. deliberate burning in the early dry season. In this study we examine the climate effect of (deliberately) changing fire regimes beyond CH4 and N2O, including aerosols and other short-lived species, CO2, and changes to surface albedo. We find that in general shifting burning earlier in a single fire season results in global negative climate forcing (cooling) of around −0.001 to −0.002 W m−2 (long-term) or −0.006 (short-term) W m−2, compared to less than −0.0005 W m−2 if only considering CH4 and N2O. Forcing from shifting burning later in contrast is negligible in the long term. CO2 emissions reduction through emission factor changes and burned area reduction is the largest contributing factor, though especially in the short term albedo effects are also substantial. Shifting fire activity towards the late fire season generally produces a positive climate forcing (warming) of a smaller magnitude. We find too that some localities within our study area have a potentially disproportionately large impact on our results, such that the efficacy of any fire regime change with respect to climate forcing must be carefully considered on a local scale.