Research

An estimate of carbon emissions from 2004 wildfires across Alaskan Yukon River Basin

Zhengxi Tan¹ , Larry L Tieszen² , Zhiliang Zhu² , Shuguang Liu¹ and Stephen M Howard¹

¹SAIC, Contractor to USGS Center for EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA

²USGS Center for EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA

author email corresponding author email

Carbon Balance and Management 2007, 2:12doi:10.1186/1750-0680-2-12

Published:	19 December 2007

Abstract

Background

Wildfires are an increasingly important component of the forces that drive the global carbon (C) cycle and climate change as progressive warming is expected in boreal areas. This study estimated C emissions from the wildfires across the Alaskan Yukon River Basin in 2004. We spatially related the firescars to land cover types and defined the C fractions of aboveground biomass and the ground layer (referring to the top 15 cm organic soil layer only in this paper) consumed in association with land cover types, soil drainage classes, and the C stocks in the ground layer.

Results

The fires led to a burned area of 26,500 km² and resulted in the total C emission of 81.1 ± 13.6 Tg (Tg, Teragram; 1 Tg = 10¹² g) or 3.1 ± 0.7 kg C m^-2 burned. Of the total C emission, about 73% and 27% could be attributed to the consumption of the ground layer and aboveground biomass, respectively.

Conclusion

The predominant contribution of the ground layer to the total C emission implies the importance of ground fuel management to the control of wildfires and mitigation of C emissions. The magnitude of the total C emission depends on fire extent, while the C loss in kg C m^-2 burned is affected strongly by the ground layer and soil drainage condition. The significant reduction in the ground layer by large fires may result in profound impacts on boreal ecosystem services with an increase in feedbacks between wildfires and climate change.