IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-30104-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Potential fire risks in South America under anthropogenic forcing hidden by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

Author

Listed:
  • Yanfeng Wang

    (Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
    College of Earth Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Ping Huang

    (Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
    State key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

Fires in South America have profound effects on climate change and air quality. Although anthropogenic forcing has exacerbated drought and fire risks, the fire emissions and aerosol pollution in the southern Amazon and the Pantanal region showed a consistent long-term decrease during the dry season (August–October) between 2003 and 2019. Here, we find that the decreasing trend in fire emissions, mainly located in the non-deforested region, was associated with climatic conditions unfavorable for intensifying and spreading fires, including increased humidity and slower surface wind speed. These climatic trends can be attributed to weakening of the positive phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which has strengthened the northeast trade winds within the region (3°S–13°N) and the northwest winds east of the Andes that transport more moisture into the southern Amazon and the Pantanal region. Our findings show the mitigating effects of weakening of the positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation phase on human-induced intensification of fire risks in South America and warn of potentially increased risks of fires and aerosol pollution under intensified anthropogenic forcing in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Yanfeng Wang & Ping Huang, 2022. "Potential fire risks in South America under anthropogenic forcing hidden by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-30104-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30104-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30104-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-30104-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Max A. Moritz & Enric Batllori & Ross A. Bradstock & A. Malcolm Gill & John Handmer & Paul F. Hessburg & Justin Leonard & Sarah McCaffrey & Dennis C. Odion & Tania Schoennagel & Alexandra D. Syphard, 2014. "Learning to coexist with wildfire," Nature, Nature, vol. 515(7525), pages 58-66, November.
    2. Xiaoqin Yan & Rong Zhang & Thomas R. Knutson, 2017. "The role of Atlantic overturning circulation in the recent decline of Atlantic major hurricane frequency," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Ben B. B. Booth & Nick J. Dunstone & Paul R. Halloran & Timothy Andrews & Nicolas Bellouin, 2012. "Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability," Nature, Nature, vol. 484(7393), pages 228-232, April.
    4. Arie Staal & Obbe A. Tuinenburg & Joyce H. C. Bosmans & Milena Holmgren & Egbert H. van Nes & Marten Scheffer & Delphine Clara Zemp & Stefan C. Dekker, 2018. "Forest-rainfall cascades buffer against drought across the Amazon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(6), pages 539-543, June.
    5. W. Knorr & A. Arneth & L. Jiang, 2016. "Demographic controls of future global fire risk," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(8), pages 781-785, August.
    6. Peter M. Cox & Phil P. Harris & Chris Huntingford & Richard A. Betts & Matthew Collins & Chris D. Jones & Tim E. Jupp & José A. Marengo & Carlos A. Nobre, 2008. "Increasing risk of Amazonian drought due to decreasing aerosol pollution," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7192), pages 212-215, May.
    7. Eric A. Davidson & Alessandro C. de Araújo & Paulo Artaxo & Jennifer K. Balch & I. Foster Brown & Mercedes M. C. Bustamante & Michael T. Coe & Ruth S. DeFries & Michael Keller & Marcos Longo & J. Will, 2012. "The Amazon basin in transition," Nature, Nature, vol. 481(7381), pages 321-328, January.
    8. Eric A. Davidson & Alessandro C. de Araújo & Paulo Artaxo & Jennifer K. Balch & I. Foster Brown & Mercedes M. C. Bustamante & Michael T. Coe & Ruth S. DeFries & Michael Keller & Marcos Longo & J. Will, 2012. "Correction: Corrigendum: The Amazon basin in transition," Nature, Nature, vol. 483(7388), pages 232-232, March.
    9. A. Baccini & S. J. Goetz & W. S. Walker & N. T. Laporte & M. Sun & D. Sulla-Menashe & J. Hackler & P. S. A. Beck & R. Dubayah & M. A. Friedl & S. Samanta & R. A. Houghton, 2012. "Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(3), pages 182-185, March.
    10. Ben B. B. Booth & Nick J. Dunstone & Paul R. Halloran & Timothy Andrews & Nicolas Bellouin, 2012. "Erratum: Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability," Nature, Nature, vol. 485(7399), pages 534-534, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Yeon-Su & Rodrigues, Marcos & Robinne, François-Nicolas, 2021. "Economic drivers of global fire activity: A critical review using the DPSIR framework," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    2. Yue Li & Paulo M. Brando & Douglas C. Morton & David M. Lawrence & Hui Yang & James T. Randerson, 2022. "Deforestation-induced climate change reduces carbon storage in remaining tropical forests," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Yoko Yamagami & Masahiro Watanabe & Masato Mori & Jun Ono, 2022. "Barents-Kara sea-ice decline attributed to surface warming in the Gulf Stream," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Conceição, Katyanne V. & Chaves, Michel E.D. & Picoli, Michelle C.A. & Sánchez, Alber H. & Soares, Anderson R. & Mataveli, Guilherme A.V. & Silva, Daniel E. & Costa, Joelma S. & Camara, Gilberto, 2021. "Government policies endanger the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Amazon," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Raphaël Rousseau-Rizzi & Kerry Emanuel, 2022. "Natural and anthropogenic contributions to the hurricane drought of the 1970s–1980s," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Yuanwei Qin & Xiangming Xiao & Fang Liu & Fabio Sa e Silva & Yosio Shimabukuro & Egidio Arai & Philip Martin Fearnside, 2023. "Forest conservation in Indigenous territories and protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(3), pages 295-305, March.
    7. Caviglia-Harris, Jill & Biggs, Trent & Ferreira, Elvino & Harris, Daniel W. & Mullan, Katrina & Sills, Erin O., 2021. "The color of water: The contributions of green and blue water to agricultural productivity in the Western Brazilian Amazon," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    8. Simon L. L. Michel & Didier Swingedouw & Pablo Ortega & Guillaume Gastineau & Juliette Mignot & Gerard McCarthy & Myriam Khodri, 2022. "Early warning signal for a tipping point suggested by a millennial Atlantic Multidecadal Variability reconstruction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    9. Kerry Emanuel, 2021. "Atlantic tropical cyclones downscaled from climate reanalyses show increasing activity over past 150 years," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Fukai Liu & Xun Li & Yiyong Luo & Wenju Cai & Jian Lu & Xiao-Tong Zheng & Sarah M. Kang & Hai Wang & Lei Zhou, 2024. "Increased Asian aerosols drive a slowdown of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Yunpeng Luo & Huai Chen & Qiu'an Zhu & Changhui Peng & Gang Yang & Yanzheng Yang & Yao Zhang, 2014. "Relationship between Air Pollutants and Economic Development of the Provincial Capital Cities in China during the Past Decade," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-14, August.
    12. Thomas Curt & Thibaut Frejaville, 2018. "Wildfire Policy in Mediterranean France: How Far is it Efficient and Sustainable?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 472-488, March.
    13. Chenyu Zhu & Zhengyu Liu & Shaoqing Zhang & Lixin Wu, 2023. "Likely accelerated weakening of Atlantic overturning circulation emerges in optimal salinity fingerprint," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    14. Yan Yu & Jiafu Mao & Stan D. Wullschleger & Anping Chen & Xiaoying Shi & Yaoping Wang & Forrest M. Hoffman & Yulong Zhang & Eric Pierce, 2022. "Machine learning–based observation-constrained projections reveal elevated global socioeconomic risks from wildfire," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    15. Alessandra Giannini & Alexey Kaplan, 2019. "The role of aerosols and greenhouse gases in Sahel drought and recovery," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 449-466, March.
    16. Zhili Wang & Yadong Lei & Huizheng Che & Bo Wu & Xiaoye Zhang, 2024. "Aerosol forcing regulating recent decadal change of summer water vapor budget over the Tibetan Plateau," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    17. Cheng Zhong & Chen Chen & Yue Liu & Peng Gao & Hui Li, 2019. "A Specific Study on the Impacts of PM2.5 on Urban Heat Islands with Detailed In Situ Data and Satellite Images," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Thomas Buchholz & John Gunn & Bruce Springsteen & Gregg Marland & Max Moritz & David Saah, 2022. "Probability-based accounting for carbon in forests to consider wildfire and other stochastic events: synchronizing science, policy, and carbon offsets," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Onil Banerjee & Martin Cicowiez & Marcia Macedo & Žiga Malek & Peter Verburg & Sean Goodwin & Renato Vargas & Ludmila Rattis & Paulo M. Brando & Michael T. Coe & Christopher Neill & Octavio Damiani, 2020. "An Amazon Tipping Point: The Economic and Environmental Fallout," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0292, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    20. Heloisa Ruivo & Gilvan Sampaio & Fernando M. Ramos, 2014. "Knowledge extraction from large climatological data sets using a genome-wide analysis approach: application to the 2005 and 2010 Amazon droughts," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 347-361, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-30104-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.