Recent deforestation drove the spike in Amazonian fires

CARDIL A.; DE-MIGUEL S.; SILVA C.A.; REICH P.B.; CALKIN D.; PERI P.L.; LIANG J.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2020 vol. 15 p. 1 - 5

1748-9326

Tropical forests are of global importance even though they only cover around 10% of the Earth?sland surface. They store large amounts of carbon and host between one-half and two-thirds of the world?s species. Considering the fact that the doubling of fire incidence in August?the peak fire month in 2019?relative to the average August fire incidence over the last decade was not influenced by severe droughts or other climatic anomalies, what caused the 2019 Amazon fires anomaly? We analyzed the 2019 fire incidence, from 26 September 2018 to 25 September 2019, derived from the Visible and Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite, and its association with recent deforestation to disentangle the direct anthropogenic effect from a plethora of complex factors driving Amazon fires. In 2019, more than 92 000 km2 of tropical moist forest biomes were affected by fires, 69 000 km2 of which were within the Amazonian basin according to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MCD64A1 global burned area product. We estimate the amount of vegetation carbon in the burned areas at 0.64 Gt C in 2019, equivalent to 0.63% of the carbon sequestered in vegetation biomass in the Amazon Basin based on the most representative global aboveground biomass models. the current trend of deforestation, fire expansion and forest degradation can cause catastrophic changes in Amazonia, including human and livestock loss and property damage. Our analysis sounds the alarm bell for an even higher fire incidence in the Amazon tropical moist forest in the coming years.