Report on Advances in Wildfire-Earth System Modeling and Implications for Sustainable Development Goals

Introduction

Extreme wildfire events, such as California’s 2020 Creek Fire, are increasingly generating their own weather systems, including pyrocumulonimbus (PyroCb) clouds. These wildfire-induced thunderstorms pose significant risks to containment efforts and have lasting impacts on air quality, weather, and climate. Historically, Earth system models have been unable to replicate these phenomena, creating a critical gap in predicting their occurrence and understanding their global climatic effects. A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters presents a breakthrough in this area by successfully simulating PyroCb clouds within an Earth system model for the first time.

Key Research Findings

The study, led by scientist Ziming Ke of the Desert Research Institute (DRI), developed a novel wildfire-Earth system modeling framework. The primary achievements of this research include:

1. Successful Simulation: The model accurately reproduced the timing, height, and strength of the PyroCb cloud generated by the 2020 Creek Fire, one of the largest such events observed in the United States.
2. Model Validation: The framework also successfully replicated multiple thunderstorms produced by the 2021 Dixie Fire, which occurred under different atmospheric conditions, demonstrating the model’s robustness.
3. Critical Factor Identified: The research identified the transport of fire-induced water vapor into the upper atmosphere, aided by terrain and winds, as a key mechanism for PyroCb development.

Technological Innovation and Methodology

The breakthrough was achieved by leveraging the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). The research team developed a new framework that integrates several components:

• High-resolution wildfire emissions data.
• A one-dimensional plume-rise model.
• Mechanisms for fire-induced water vapor transport.

This multi-institutional effort involved scientists from DRI, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, U.C. Irvine, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, representing a significant collaborative advancement in climate science.

Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This research directly supports and advances several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by enhancing scientific understanding and predictive capabilities for extreme environmental events.

• SDG 13: Climate Action: By successfully modeling PyroCb events, which inject smoke and aerosols into the stratosphere with an impact comparable to small volcanic eruptions, the research provides a critical tool for understanding their effect on Earth’s radiation balance, stratospheric composition, and polar climate feedbacks. This improves the accuracy of global climate models and our ability to take informed climate action.
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: The ability to predict the formation of wildfire-induced thunderstorms enhances preparedness and resilience for communities threatened by increasingly severe wildfires. Improved forecasting can protect lives, property, and critical infrastructure.
• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being: Wildfire smoke from extreme events severely degrades air quality over vast regions. By improving models of smoke injection and transport into the upper atmosphere, this work contributes to better air quality forecasting, which is vital for protecting public health.
• SDG 15: Life on Land: Understanding and predicting extreme fire behavior is fundamental to managing terrestrial ecosystems. This modeling capability can inform strategies to protect biodiversity and restore ecosystems impacted by the growing frequency of catastrophic wildfires.
• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure: The development of this novel wildfire-Earth system modeling framework is a first-of-its-kind scientific innovation. It builds resilient scientific infrastructure necessary to study extreme hazards and supports the development of advanced tools for disaster risk reduction.
• SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals: The research exemplifies a successful partnership between multiple academic and national laboratory institutions, combining expertise and resources to address a complex global challenge that transcends disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

Conclusion and Future Implications

The successful simulation of pyrocumulonimbus clouds within an Earth system model marks a significant breakthrough in wildfire and climate science. This new framework not only allows for the study of individual extreme fire events but also establishes a foundation for future exploration of these storms at regional and global scales. By incorporating this critical natural disturbance into climate models, scientists can better understand the comprehensive impact of wildfires on the global climate system, thereby advancing efforts to achieve key sustainable development outcomes related to climate resilience, public health, and environmental protection.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 13: Climate Action

  The article is fundamentally about climate action. It discusses the increasing severity of wildfires, a climate-related hazard, and their complex interaction with the atmosphere, weather, and global climate. The core of the article is the development of an Earth system model to better understand and predict how wildfire-induced storms (“pyrocumulonimbus clouds”) impact the climate by injecting smoke into the stratosphere, altering sunlight reflection, affecting ozone dynamics, and accelerating ice melt in polar regions.

• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

  This goal is relevant through its focus on disaster resilience. The article mentions that severe wildfires like the Creek Fire are “endangering the lives of firefighters on the ground.” The research aims to create models that can predict these extreme events, which directly contributes to improving “national resilience and preparedness” against natural disasters, a key aspect of making communities safer.

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

  The article explicitly states that wildfire-born storms have “lasting impacts on air quality.” The injection of smoke and aerosols into the upper atmosphere can persist for months, affecting atmospheric composition on a large scale. This connects to SDG 3’s aim to reduce illnesses from air pollution. The research institute’s mission is also noted as producing “solutions that better human and environmental health.”

• SDG 15: Life on Land

  The article touches upon the impact of climate change on terrestrial and polar ecosystems. It notes that fire aerosols transported to polar regions “accelerate ice and snow melt, reshaping polar climate feedbacks.” This directly impacts life in those regions. Furthermore, the “trend of increasingly severe wildfires” is a major threat to forests and terrestrial ecosystems, which are the focus of SDG 15.

• SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

  The entire research project described is an example of partnership in action. The article highlights that the study was a collaboration between scientists from multiple institutions, including the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, U.C. Irvine, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This multi-stakeholder partnership to advance science and technology for sustainable development is central to SDG 17.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

1. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. The article’s focus on developing a modeling framework to predict extreme fire behavior is a direct effort to “improve national resilience and preparedness.”
   • Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. The development of a “first-of-its-kind breakthrough in Earth system modeling” enhances the institutional capacity to understand and provide early warnings for these climate-related phenomena.

2. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

   • Target 11.5: By 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected…caused by disasters. The research aims to understand and predict fires that are “endangering the lives of firefighters,” which is a direct contribution to reducing the human impact of these disasters.

3. SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

   • Target 3.9: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination. The model helps understand the “lasting impacts on air quality” and the injection of “smoke and moisture into the upper atmosphere,” which are forms of air pollution with significant health implications.

4. SDG 15: Life on Land

   • Target 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats. The article notes that fire aerosols “accelerate ice and snow melt” in polar regions, contributing to the degradation of those unique natural habitats.

5. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

   • Target 17.6: Enhance…cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation. The article describes a successful scientific collaboration between several major US research labs and universities to create a novel modeling framework.
   • Target 17.17: Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships. The research team, comprising a non-profit institute (DRI), national laboratories (LLNL, PNNL), and a university (UC Irvine), exemplifies such a partnership.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

1. Indicators for SDG 13 & 11

   • Development and successful implementation of predictive models for extreme weather events: The article’s central achievement is the “first successful simulation of these wildfire-induced storms…within an Earth system model.” The model’s ability to successfully reproduce the “observed timing, height, and strength of the Creek Fire’s thunderhead” serves as a direct indicator of progress.
   • Number of national strategies for disaster risk reduction: The stated goal of the research to “improve national resilience and preparedness” implies that the adoption of this modeling technology into national disaster strategies would be a key indicator.

2. Indicators for SDG 3

   • Measurement of atmospheric aerosol concentration: The article discusses how pyrocumulonimbus clouds inject “smoke and moisture into the upper atmosphere” and how “fire aerosols can persist for months.” The ability to model and eventually measure these concentrations is an implied indicator for tracking air pollution from wildfires.

3. Indicators for SDG 15

   • Rate of ice and snow melt in polar regions: The article explicitly links fire aerosols to accelerated ice and snow melt. Monitoring this rate, and understanding the contribution from wildfires via the new model, serves as an indicator of the impact on polar habitats.

4. Indicators for SDG 17

   • Number of joint scientific and technological publications and collaborations: The article itself, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters by a multi-institutional team, is a tangible indicator of a successful scientific partnership.

4. Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: eurekalert.org