Abstract
This study was conducted to model fire occurrence within El Nino variability and peatland distribution. These climate and geographical factors have a significant impact on forest fires in tropical areas such as Indonesia. The re-analysis dataset from ECMWF was observed with respect to climate characteristics in Indonesian El Nino events. The INFERNO (INteractive Fire and Emission algoRithm for Natural envirOnments) was utilized to simulate fires over Borneo Island due to its capability to simulate large-scale fires with simplified parameters. There were some adjustments in this INFERNO model, especially for peat fire as peatland has a significant impact on fires. The first was the contribution of climate to the peat fire which is represented by long-term precipitation. The second was the combustion completeness of peat fire occurrence that is mainly affected by human-induced peat drainage. The result of the model shows that El Nino variability mainly affected peat fires but was unable to well simulate the above-ground fire. It increased the burnt area during strong El Nino but overestimated the fires during low/no El Nino season due to lack of peat fire ignition in the calculation. Moreover, as the model did not provide peat drainage simulation, it underestimated the carbon emission. This model has shown promising results by addressing key features in limited input data, but improving some simulations is necessary for regulating weak/no El Nino conditions and carbon combustion of peat fire.
Highlights
Fires have caused massive loss of tropical forests, but our ability to predict future fire impacts rests on our ability to model fire regimes (Hantson et al, 2016)
El Nino has played a major role in the climate system which is accompanied with massive change of carbon cycle caused by forest fires (Liu et al, 2017)
The El Nino variability obviously affects wildfires in the tropics, the correlation of the above-ground fire with El Nino was not well-captured by the model
Summary
Fires have caused massive loss of tropical forests, but our ability to predict future fire impacts rests on our ability to model fire regimes (Hantson et al, 2016). El Nino has played a major role in the climate system which is accompanied with massive change of carbon cycle caused by forest fires (Liu et al, 2017). Future climate change is mainly induced by atmospheric greenhouse gases, so a fire model that is able to simulate the key processes efficiently and connect to the carbon process is needed (Friedlingstein et al, 2001; Friedlingstein et al, 2003). Peat fires occur because they are the easiest way to clear peatlands by drainage. In this practice, the climatic factor is significant to determine the spread of fire. A peat fire creates a long fire regime as it burns below the ground surface and it is almost impossible to find the source of the fire
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