title: Global combustion: the connection between fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions (1997-2010).
abstract: Humans use combustion for heating and cooking, managing lands, and, more recently, for fuelling the industrial economy. As a shift to fossil-fuel-based energy occurs, we expect that anthropogenic biomass burning in open landscapes will decline as it becomes less fundamental to energy acquisition and livelihoods. Using global data on both fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions, we tested this relationship over a 14 year period (1997-2010). The global average annual carbon emissions from biomass burning during this time were 2.2 Pg C per year (±0.3 s.d.), approximately one-third of fossil fuel emissions over the same period (7.3 Pg C, ±0.8 s.d.). There was a significant inverse relationship between average annual fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions. Fossil fuel emissions explained 8% of the variation in biomass burning emissions at a global scale, but this varied substantially by land cover. For example, fossil fuel burning explained 31% of the variation in biomass burning in woody savannas, but was a non-significant predictor for evergreen needleleaf forests. In the land covers most dominated by human use, croplands and urban areas, fossil fuel emissions were more than 30- and 500-fold greater than biomass burning emissions. This relationship suggests that combustion practices may be shifting from open landscape burning to contained combustion for industrial purposes, and highlights the need to take into account how humans appropriate combustion in global modelling of contemporary fire. Industrialized combustion is not only an important driver of atmospheric change, but also an important driver of landscape change through companion declines in human-started fires.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Earth Lab, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA jennifer.balch@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Balch
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Earth Lab, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
authors.forename: R Chelsea
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Nagy
authors.affiliation: School of Animal Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa.
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Archibald
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7011, Australia.
authors.forename: David M J S
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8075-124X
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Bowman
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Max A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Moritz
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher I
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8754-7655
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Roos
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 OEX, UK.
authors.forename: Andrew C
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1998-3508
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7011, Australia.
authors.forename: Grant J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Williamson
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D018533:Biomass; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005390:Fires; D005579:Fossil Fuels / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D005579:Fossil Fuels; D002244:Carbon
keywords: anthropogenic burning; carbon dioxide emissions; climate change; global fire; pyrogeography