Publications by authors named "Mercy Ndalila"
Article Synopsis
- Greenhouse gas accounting in Australia must account for landscape fires, which are common and necessary for ecological health.
- The Australian Government's GHG inventory report operates under the assumption that the impacts of both natural and human-caused fires on carbon stocks are temporary and that some wildfires should be excluded from emissions estimates.
- Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of fires, which complicates these assumptions, highlighting the need for better data and reporting on various fire impacts and human influences on emissions.
Background: Uncontrolled wildfires in Australian temperate Eucalyptus forests produce significant smoke emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO) and particulates. Emissions from fires in these ecosystems, however, have received less research attention than the fires in North American conifer forests or frequently burned Australian tropical savannas. Here, we use the 2013 Forcett-Dunalley fire that caused the first recorded pyrocumulonimbus event in Tasmania, to understand CO and particulate matter (PM) emissions from a severe Eucalyptus forest fire.
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- Over the 2019/20 austral spring and summer, over 7 million hectares of Eucalyptus forests on Australia's east coast were burned, releasing approximately 0.67 Pg of CO emissions.
- While Eucalyptus forests can typically recover from wildfires, their ability to do so is declining due to ongoing drought and frequent fires, which may result in future forests storing less carbon.
- There is ongoing debate about the effectiveness of prescribed burning and mechanical thinning for carbon management, as these practices may carry significant carbon costs that could negate their benefits in reducing emissions from wildfires.