Wildfire in Northern Eurasia and climate change

The presentation considers dynamics of fire regimes in Northern Eurasia (limited to territories of Russia) and their impacts on ecosystems and major global biogeochemical cycles. Historically, fire regimes in different regions were defined by natural climate variability, previous fire history and the level of direct human impact. The climate specifics over the last three decades in Russia substantially impacted fire extent, frequency and severity. Regular occurrence of mega(catastrophic) fires becomes a distinct feature of current fire regimes. Megafires (e.g., 1998, 2003, 2008, 2010) lead to degradation of ecosystems and the profound depletion of biodiversity, substantial increase of emissions, create special atmospheric and seasonal weather over large areas, cause considerable damage to the economy and infrastructure, as well as adversely affect the living conditions and health of the population in the regions of fire spread.