the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Quantifying the impacts of wildfires on soil thermal, hydrological and carbon dynamics in northern Eurasia from 2003 to 2016
Abstract. We use a process-based biogeochemistry model to simulate the fire impacts on soil thermal and hydrological dynamics and carbon budget of forest ecosystems in Northern Eurasia during 2003–2016 based on satellite-derived burn severity data. We find that fire severity generally increases in this region during the study period. Simulations indicate that fires increase soil temperature by 0.2–0.5 °C through removing the ground moss and surface soil organic matter, especially in Asian part of the region. Fires also increase water runoff by about 131 million m3 yr-1 through reducing post-fire evapotranspiration, leading to a higher regional river discharge. Fires remove 1.7 Pg C of ecosystem carbon through combustion emissions during this period and reduce net ecosystem production from 106.4 to 66.1 Tg C yr-1. Fires lead the forest ecosystems to lose 2.3 Pg C, shifting the forests from a carbon sink to a source in this period. Our study highlights the importance of wildfires in affecting soil thermal and hydrological and carbon dynamics in boreal forests.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1324', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Jul 2024
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In this manuscript, the authors force the TEM model with burned area and severity derived from a neat satellite data analysis. They then do another run with no fire and compare, across Eurasian boreal forests for 2003-2016, the two runs’ soil temperature, hydrology, and carbon. In this way, they quantify fire’s contribution to energy, water, and carbon fluxes in this biome.
The manuscript is well-organized and well-written. The analyses are sufficient to support most of the conclusions, although I have one additional suggestion. In all, I recommend this paper for acceptance pending minor revisions.
Main comments
- How much of a reduction in litter post-fire is there? Fire burns some portion of litter, of course, and the reduction in LAI means there’s less litter being generated. But is any of that lost LAI dropped to litter? It might be helpful to see a time series of net litter flux in burned areas before and after fire.
- Does litter have an insulating effect like moss does?
- I was surprised to see negative dNBR values. I see now that’s mathematically possible, but how should a reader interpret such values?
- Any ideas why fire might decrease soil temperature in some places?
Minor comments/corrections
- P3L19: Citation needed for Landsat data?
- P7L1-2 (Fig. 2 caption): Is gray nonforest/not simulated?
- P11L21: The “previous estimates” referred to are the Pan-Arctic ones, yes? This could be mentioned in this sentence for clarity.
- P12L10: I think this should be equation 4, not 2.
- P13L8-9: Worth pointing out that this limitation doesn’t apply to your per-watershed analysis (Table 2).
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1324-RC1
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Quantifying the impacts of wildfires on soil thermal, hydrological and carbon dynamics in northern Eurasia from 2003 to 2016 Qianlai Zhuang and Yiming Xu https://doi.org/10.4231/ZJM7-A207
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