Prognostic Fire Emissions in the NASA GEOS Earth System Model

Fire is a critical component of the Earth system, affecting biogeochemical and hydrological cycles. Fire-weather conditions created by the climatic state, coupled with land surface characteristics and vegetation, determine both the occurrence and spread of fires. Fire activity therefore both affects and is affected by the land-atmosphere system. Presently within the NASA GEOS global model, fire emissions are prescribed from observationally-based estimates (e.g., GFED, QFED) or semi-prognostic emissions can be calculated based on local fire weather conditions. Recently, the Catchment land surface model (LSM) within GEOS has been updated to include prognostic carbon and phenology elements from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)/Department of Energy (DOE) Community Land Model (CLM) Dynamic Vegetation Model. The new system, Catchment-CN, combines the dynamic phenology elements of CLMv4.5 with the water and energy balance from the Catchment LSM. We show results evaluating the burned area and carbon emissions from the prognostic fire parameterization within CLM4.5 using offline simulations of Catchment-CN driven by MERRA-2 forcing. We additionally show results of several simulations of the GEOS Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) coupled with the Goddard Chemistry, Aerosol, Radiation, and Transport (GOCART) module using fire emissions from the Global Fire Emission Database (GFED) v4.1s, Quick Fire Emission Database (QFED), and those calculated using the prognostic fire parameterization.