Wildfires and Other Burns Play Bigger Role in Climate Change

Stanford professor's calculations indicate that wildfires and other types of fires involving plant matter play a much bigger role in climate change and human health than previously thought.

It has long been known that biomass burning -- burning forests to create agricultural lands, burning savannah as a ritual , slash-and-burn agriculture and wildfires -- figures into both climate change and public health.  But until the release of a new study by Stanford University Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, the degree of that contribution had never been comprehensively quantified.

Jacobson's research, detailed in a paper published July 30 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, is based on a three-dimensional computer model simulation of the impacts of biomass burning.  His findings indicate that burning biomass is playing a much bigger role in climate change and human health issues than previously thought.

"We calculate that 5 to 10 percent of worldwide air pollution mortalities are due to biomass burning," Jacobson said.  "That means that it causes the premature deaths of about 250,000 people each year."

Wildfires and Other Burns Play Bigger Role in Climate Change