Research
Vegetation fires are an integral Earth System process, which is controlled by climate and at the same time impacts climate in multiple ways. As such fires form a feedback mechanism in the Earth System, which might amplify or dampen climate change. The Emmy Noether independent junior group "Fire in the Earth System" aims to quantify the fire-climate feedback by incorporating the integral role of fires into an Earth System Model (MPI-ESM).
The figure on the right (click to enlarge) illustrates exemplary climate relevant impacts in the single compartment of the Earth System: (i) emissions of trace gases in the atmosphere (ii) modification of vegetation distribution (iii) redistributions of nutrients from the land to the ocean surface and (iv) deposition of dark soot on bright snow and ice surfaces.
Projects we are working on:
- Fire process modeling
Gitta Lasslop is working on the implementation of the SPITFIRE model in JSBACH. Further developments will explore the use of socioeconomic parameters to improve the representation of the human influence.
The development of a benchmarking system that goes beyond the simple comparison of geographic patters and also considers the covariation with climate and ecosystem parameters will help in the consistent development of a global scale fire model for JSBACH. The comparison with remote sensing data on fire intensities, burned area, and emissions together with model experiments will reveal how complex fire models need to be to provide the necessary links to the climate system on global scale.
Stiig Wilkenskjeld is working on various developments of the global carbon vegetation model JSBACH with a special emphasis on processes that are relevant for fire process modeling. This is done in close cooperation with the scientific programmers of the "Global Vegetation Modeling" and "Climate-Biogeosphere Interaction" groups. Recent projects include for example the implementation of a 5 layer soil hydrology scheme developed by the "Terrestrial Hydrology" group into the lastest JSBACH version and the analysis of the consequences of this scheme for the simulated fire activity.
Andreas Krause investigated within a 2 month internship (February to April 2011) how changes in humidity and biomass thresholds influence the occurrences of fires in the standard JSBACH fire model. In addition he compared lightning flash rates simulated with ECHAM6 to remotely sensed observations. Andreas will continue to work on this project for his Master thesis beginning 2012.
- Land use change and deforestation
Jessica Engels is working on simulating seasonal dependent deforestation fire emissions over the last Millennium (800-2010) in the global vegetation model JSBACH. In order to run the model the output data of the MPI-M millennium simulations [Jungclaus et al., 2010] and the land use change maps according to Pongratz et al. (2008) are used. This project is Jessica's diploma project.
- Combining Satellite Observations on fire activity and Vegetation models
Iryna Khlystova is working on the integration of satellite fire products into the land model JSBACH. Burned area as observed from satellite will be used as boundary condition in the model. Interactively combined with the fuel load simulated in JSBACH this will allow an estimate of trace gas and aerosol emissions from fires into the atmosphere. Burned area observation will be used from a MODIS based product (GDED3, Giglio et al., 2010) and at a later stage the burned area product of the “Fire ECV” project as part of the ESA climate change initiative (CCI), which is currently under development, will be applied.
As part of the same initiative Iryna is also involved in the integration of a new landcover dataset into JSBACH. This is done in the "Terrestrial Remote Sensing" group.