SYDNEY, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- The surge of extreme wildfires around the world driven by climate change could exacerbate climate change and pose a risk to the health of the ecosystem, Australian researchers warned.
In an article published in the latest issue of the academic journal Science, researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra and the University of Tasmania reviewed the significant impacts of Australia's unprecedented wildfires in 2019-2020 and called for rethinking the diversity of approaches of fire management.
The 2019-2020 wildfires in Australia increased the burned area by 800 percent as compared with the average area burned in 1988-2001, emitting the amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to 80 percent of Australia's combined annual fire and fossil fuel emissions, according to the article.
The fires caused outbreak of 44 fire thunderstorms, releasing massive amount of smoke which affected stratospheric circulation patterns. The smoke also produced stratospheric aerosol pollution that caused damage to the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes.
These enormous fires "had a significant effect on systems that influence global climate," said Jason Sharples, Professor of Bushfire Dynamics at UNSW Canberra.
"The unprecedented amount of smoke and greenhouse gases released by the fires led to such immense stratospheric pollution that it damaged the ozone layer, caused a drop in sea temperatures and produced algal blooms in the Southern Ocean that were larger in size than Australia," he said.
Sharples warned that these impacts posed a serious risk to the health of global ecosystems.
"It is crucial that the global community takes steps to limit the effects of climate change and improve fire management techniques to prevent these extreme fires as much as possible," said Sharples.
Australia has for a long time relied on prescribed burning to reduce the fuel load for bushfires, but it is less effective in hot and drier conditions caused by climate change, said David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science of the University of Tasmania.
The severe fires ignited policy discussions focusing on increasing firefighter capability and capacity, but with extreme fires in the future, no firefighting service could adequately respond to them, said Bowman.
Therefore, Australia and other fire-prone countries needed to re-think fire management practices and adopt a diversity of approaches to meet the challenge, he noted. ■