Fire outbreaks in extreme climate years in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

Plant burning in tropical countries is a threat to the environment. It not only damages the local ecology but also affects the economy and society. This work aimed to analyze the meteorological systems, soil attributes, and meteorological variables derived from NCEP-DOE Reanalysis 2 for 3 years of atypical climatic events (2005, 2010, and 2015); and relate these factors to the occurrence of fire outbreaks in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2005, a total of 1,085 fire outbreaks were registered in the State, and most of them occurred during the dry season in the soil classes ultisol (542) and oxisol (139). The highest fire outbreaks concentration was reported in 2010, totaling 1, 702 outbreaks, and Argissolo and Latossolo (747 and 301, respectively) were also the most predominant soil classes. This fact can be explained by the greater predominance of pastures and greater area in km 2 in the State. In 2015, the highest number of fire outbreaks was recorded, again, in Argissolo (418), in addition to Gleissolo (102). The total number of fire outbreaks registered in 2015 was lower than those recorded in 2005 and 2010, totaling 916 fire outbreaks statewide. The correlation shows maximum positive values of zonal wind component (0.71) for 2005. The highest negative values correlations found for 2005, 2010, and 2015 were for the meteorological traits soil moisture and relative air humidity, respectively. The present study is important for highlighting up the vulnerability of the Atlantic Forest ecosystem, given the occurrence of fire outbreaks.

Climate extremes related with rainfall in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: a review of climatological characteristics and recorded trends

“…According to Sobral et al (2018), fewer consecutive dry days are recorded over areas in the State close to broad potential evaporation regions, such as the ocean, lakes, or bays. Meanwhile, the prolonged periods of drought in the State's interior can favor forest fires (Andrade et al 2019 ).…”

Persistent fire foci in all biomes undermine the Paris Agreement in Brazil

“…One of the measures proposed by the Brazilian government to achieve the Paris Agreement commitments was to increase the share of sustainable biofuels in its vehicle fleet to 18% by 2030. For this to happen, the ethanol sector will need to increase its planted area from 1.2 to 5 Mha in the next decade, which will occur at the expense of replacing pastures (72%) and natural vegetation mosaics (19%) 8 . This increase in planting area may lead to greater deforestation and ultimately GHG emissions.…”

“…Here, the semi-permanent high-pressure circulation of the South Atlantic is evident, featuring a drier landscape with a significant reduction in relative humidity and rainfall. In the Southeast region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Andrade et al 8 also conducted a study on extreme drought events that occurred in 2005, 2010 and 2015 based on the use and occupation of soils, meteorological variables, and atmospheric circulation. They found a significant increase in the number of fires during winter and spring and associated the fire densities to the portion of the argisol and latosol soil classes in 2005 and 2010 and gleisol in 2015; these are most prevalent soil classes in Rio de Janeiro.…”

Future spatial modeling of vegetation in the Central Atlantic Forest Corridor, Brazil

“…The relationships between drought events in tropical forests and fires have already been addressed in certain studies (Ribeiro et al, 2018;Silva et al, 2020;Santos et al, 2021), indicating increased biomass burning in severe drought scenarios in the Amazon (Brando et al, 2014;Silva Juńior et al, 2019;Silva et al, 2020) and the Atlantic Forest (Andrade et al, 2019;Santos et al, 2021). Given these scenarios, and the future projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that indicate an increase in the Earth's temperature, it is important to use tools to assist firefighting through monitoring and mitigation of forest domains in the fight against climate change at a spatiotemporal scale (Lemos and Cunha, 2021).…”