Periodic Reporting for period 4 - HAZE (Reducing the Burden of Smouldering Megafires: an Earth-Scale Challenge)
Período documentado: 2020-11-01 hasta 2022-04-30
Smouldering megafires are the largest and longest-burning fires on Earth. They destroy essential peatland ecosystems, and are responsible for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same amount attributed to the whole of the European Union, and yet it is not accounted for in global carbon budgets. Peat fires also induce surges of respiratory emergencies in the population and disrupt shipping and aviation routes for long periods, weeks even months. The ambition of HAZE was to advance the science and create the technology that will reduce the burden of smouldering fires. Despite their importance, before HAZE no one understood how smouldering fires ignite, spread and extinguish, which impeded the development of successful mitigation strategy. Megafires are still routinely fought across the globe with techniques that were developed for flaming fires, and are thus ineffective for smouldering. Moreover, the burning of deep peat affects older soil carbon that has not been part of the active carbon cycle for centuries to millennia, and thus creates a positive feedback to the climate system. HAZE has turned the challenges faced by smouldering research into opportunities. With this research, Europe has now the chance to lead the way and pioneer technologies against this Earth-scale and important but unconventional source of emissions. With the support of ERC, we delivered the science and excellence needed to tackle this global challenge, and in doing so, we have advance the knowledge frontier, fostered innovation and developed new young talent for UK, Europe, Asia and USA. The topic of peat fires is inherently interdisciplinary since geoscientists study the ecosystem and the soil chemistry of peatlands, while combustion experts, like me, study the smouldering phenomena. This has been a challenge to previous work and has led to a very fragmented science topic, but it is also an opportunity that we have embraced. In HAZE, we have followed a research approach that belongs to thermofluids and mechanical engineering but that studies a geoscience topic. We sat at the interface between the disciplines studying smouldering megafires, and my network of collaborators penetrates ecology, geology, atmosphere sciences and biochemistry. We attended their conferences and have been invited to deliver presentations to them (eg, EGU, IHSS, FESP, IAWF). Some of the outputs of HAZE are best appreciate by geoscientist. For example, HAZE models can simulate megafire occurrences worldwide and their emissions, informing weather and climate models, pollution information systems and carbon inventories.
HAZE has reached the following three novel aims:
1) We created new experimental rigs and conducted laboratory experiments and discovered how peat fires ignite, spread, extinguish and emit haze.
2) We developed new multidimensional computational models for the field scale (~1 km) and have simulated for the first time previous smouldering wildfires in Borneo.
3) We created pathways for novel mitigation technologies for prevention (computer models), quick detection (Infra red and chemical signatures).
1) We created new experimental rigs and conducted laboratory experiments and discovered how peat fires ignite, spread, extinguish and emit haze.
2) We developed new multidimensional computational models for the field scale (~1 km) and have simulated for the first time previous smouldering wildfires in Borneo.
3) We created pathways for novel mitigation technologies for prevention (computer models), quick detection (Infra red and chemical signatures).
There has been many archivements, all full of memorable moments and hard work. But we consider that the following are the top five most significant achievements of HAZE:
1. Upon starting the project, we conducted of a review of the state of the art on smoke emissions from peat fires. This paper integrated a large set of scientific studies that had not been put together until then. The results were published in the International Journal of Wildland Fires (https://doi.org/10.1071/WF17084). It is heavy cited (146 times so far in Feb 2023) and was selected by the editors as one of the 15 best papers in the journals since 1991.
2. In 2018, we conducted the first ever field experiment of smouldering peat in a real peatland of Sumatra. Over the course of two weeks, we observed the fires from ignition to spread and suppression This campaign was called GAMBUT, and was conducted with local collaborators at Universitas Indonesia. The work is published in International Journal of Wildland Fires (https://doi.org/10.1071/WF21135).
3. Towards the end of the project, I was invited by the editors of Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health to provide an overview of smouldering wildfires which an emphasis on tropical peatlands and the Arctic. This was published during the pandemic in 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2021.100296) and reflects many of the findings of HAZE.
4. Thanks in great part to HAZE, we created and fostered a key partnership with colleagues in Indonesia at Universitas Indonesia. The partnership included mutual visits (twice in Sumatra and Java, once in London), the exchange of researchers (two postdocs, two PhD students, and one visiting scholar joined my group), and the exchange of knowledge (two workshops, one in London and one in Java).
5. We were blessed with excellent media coverage from international outlets for our research in HAZE. There were many, but three most important ones are perhaps articles in The Economist (2019) and WIRED (2020, 2021) https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/08/01/the-arctic-is-ablaze https://www.wired.com/story/want-to-fight-the-zombie-fire-apocalypse-weaponize-math and https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-kill-a-zombie-fire.
1. Upon starting the project, we conducted of a review of the state of the art on smoke emissions from peat fires. This paper integrated a large set of scientific studies that had not been put together until then. The results were published in the International Journal of Wildland Fires (https://doi.org/10.1071/WF17084). It is heavy cited (146 times so far in Feb 2023) and was selected by the editors as one of the 15 best papers in the journals since 1991.
2. In 2018, we conducted the first ever field experiment of smouldering peat in a real peatland of Sumatra. Over the course of two weeks, we observed the fires from ignition to spread and suppression This campaign was called GAMBUT, and was conducted with local collaborators at Universitas Indonesia. The work is published in International Journal of Wildland Fires (https://doi.org/10.1071/WF21135).
3. Towards the end of the project, I was invited by the editors of Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health to provide an overview of smouldering wildfires which an emphasis on tropical peatlands and the Arctic. This was published during the pandemic in 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2021.100296) and reflects many of the findings of HAZE.
4. Thanks in great part to HAZE, we created and fostered a key partnership with colleagues in Indonesia at Universitas Indonesia. The partnership included mutual visits (twice in Sumatra and Java, once in London), the exchange of researchers (two postdocs, two PhD students, and one visiting scholar joined my group), and the exchange of knowledge (two workshops, one in London and one in Java).
5. We were blessed with excellent media coverage from international outlets for our research in HAZE. There were many, but three most important ones are perhaps articles in The Economist (2019) and WIRED (2020, 2021) https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/08/01/the-arctic-is-ablaze https://www.wired.com/story/want-to-fight-the-zombie-fire-apocalypse-weaponize-math and https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-kill-a-zombie-fire.