Ian Harman: Representing fire within the CABLE land model and ACCESS Earth system models
Fire is an important process within the Earth system, both globally and for Australia. Fire directly influences ecosystem function, the carbon cycle, atmospheric composition and surface exchange processes. Fire is a direct risk to human activity and health and can impact multiple other aspects of our environment.
We introduce BLAZE, a hybrid statistical-process based representation for fire within the Earth system context. BLAZE forms a novel component of the CABLE land model, linking into the representation of the terrestrial biophysical and biogeochemical cycles, and, notably, can integrate with our parameterization of tree demography, POP. We illustrate the application of BLAZE to understanding the impact of fire on Australia’s current and future carbon budgets, and discuss the steps required to activate BLAZE within a version of ACCESS.