The IGAC Biomass Burning Experiment (BIBEX):
Rationale and Evolution
Contributed by: Meinrat O. Andreae, BIBEX Convener 1988-1998, Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

A Note from the Chair

Science Features
2 BIBEX
3 STARE, TRACE-A, and SAFARI
7 Satellite Fire Monitoring
9 EXPRESSO
11 Domestic vs. Wild Fires in Africa
13 Boreal Forest Fire Research
15 GFMC and BIBEX
16 SAFARI-2000
19 BIBEX in the Future
While a few pioneering papers on the impact of biomass burning on the chemistry of the atmosphere were published in the late 1970s and early 1980s (e.g., Crutzen et al., 1979), it is only in the last decade that fire has been recognized as a major source of important trace gases and aerosol particles to the world atmosphere. The rapid development of this field is reflected in a sharp increase in the rate of publications on biomass burning, starting about 10 years ago (Figure 1).



Fire must have been around ever since land plants evolved some 300-400 million years ago. Before the advent of humans, fire was ignited naturally by lightning strikes in dry vegetated regions. Today, however, fire is almost exclusively the result of human activities, which include the burning of forested areas to facilitate land clearing, the burning of harvest debris, the extensive burning of natural grasslands and savannas to sustain nomadic agriculture, and the burning of biomass as fuel for cooking and heating.

Fires and smoke in Indonesia, Florida, Brazil, and other regions have been all over the news recently. The general public, as well as the scientific community, is now aware that the emissions from biomass burning represent a large perturbation to global atmospheric chemistry, especially in the tropics. Satellite and airborne observations have revealed elevated levels of O3, CO, and other trace gases over vast areas of Africa, South America, the tropical Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. Smoke aerosols from fires perturb regional, and probably global, radiation budgets by their light-scattering effects and by their influence on cloud microphysical processes.

Fire also has both short- and long-term effects on trace gas emissions from affected ecosystems, which, for instance, in the case of CO2 and N2O, may be more significant than their immediate release during burning. Fire also alters the long term dynamics of the cycling and storage of elements within terrestrial ecosystems, thereby changing their potential as sources or sinks of various trace gases. Finally, deposition of compounds produced by biomass burning on pristine tropical ecosystems may affect their composition and dynamics.

When, in November 1988, some 50 atmospheric scientists met at Dookie College, a small campus in the agricultural lands of Victoria (Australia) to map out the scientific goals of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Project, they were keenly aware of the prominent role that biomass burning plays in the tropics. Given the scarcity of available data at the time, they assigned high priority to the creation of the IGAC Biomass Burning Experiment (BIBEX) with the goals to

  1. characterize the production of chemically and radiatively important gases and aerosol species from biomass burning to the global atmosphere,
  2. assess the consequences of biomass burning on regional and global atmospheric chemistry and climate
  3. determine the short- and long-term effects of fire on post-fire exchanges of trace gases between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and
  4. understand the biogeochemical consequences of atmospheric deposition of products of biomass burning.

The first meeting of the BIBEX Coordinating Committee took place in September 1990, in Chamrousse, France. Additional meetings have been held approximately once per year, often in conjunction with IGAC symposia or other appropriate scientific meetings. The BIBEX community has also been involved in organizing several workshops and symposia, which served as platforms to review existing information, report on recent research, and plan future BIBEX activities. Examples are the 1992 Dahlem conference on Fire in the Environment (Crutzen and Goldammer, 1993), and the two Chapman Conferences on Biomass Burning (Levine, 1991; Levine, 1996)

As with all IGAC Activities, BIBEX utilizes and builds on existing international programs with common goals. In its activities, BIBEX focuses on biomass burning in the tropics, but also considers extratropical fire regions when appropriate. It has developed STARE (Southern Tropical Atlantic Regional Experiment) and FIRESCAN (Fire Research Campaign Asia-North) as BIBEX programs, has contributed to EXPRESSO (EXPeriment for REgional Sources and Sinks of Oxidants), and is participating in LBA (Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia). BIBEX will continue to adopt or initiate new programs in the future, with an increasing emphasis on quantifying the global distribution of biomass burned and the interaction of vegetation fires with human activities. Reflecting this change in focus, I have recently passed the Convener's torch to BIBEX's new Co-Conveners, Joyce Penner and Johann Goldammer.

There are a large number of publications based on BIBEX research, and numerous ongoing activities, more than can be presented in this newsletter. For those of you interested in knowing more, or maybe even to become involved, I invite you to visit the BIBEX homepage. Maybe I'll see you around a fire some time...

References

  1. Crutzen, P.J., and J.G. Goldammer (eds), Fire in the Environment: The Ecological, Atmospheric, and Climatic Importance of Vegetation Fires, J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, England, 400 pgs., 1993.
  2. Crutzen, P.J., L.E. Heidt, J.P. Krasnec, W.H. Pollock, and W. Seiler, Biomass burning as a source of atmospheric gases CO, H2 , N2O , NO, CH3Cl, and COS, Nature, 282, 253-256, 1979.
  3. Levine, J.S., Global Biomass Burning: Atmospheric, Climatic, and Biospheric Implications, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 569 pgs. 1991.
  4. Levine, J.S. (ed), Biomass Burning and Global Change, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 896 pgs., 1996.