The newly developed Multi-ensemble Biomass-burning Emissions Inventory (MBEI): characterizing and unraveling spatiotemporal uncertainty in global biomass burning emissions

Abstract

Large discrepancies among existing inventories hinder a consensus on the true magnitude and long-term trends of global biomass burning emissions. To address this, we developed the Multi-ensemble Biomass-burning Emissions Inventory (MBEI), a framework integrating bottom-up and top-down approaches with multi-source data to generate eight sub-inventories for the period 2003–2023. This ensemble approach allows for the explicit quantification of emission uncertainty at a 0.1° grid scale. We estimate global annual CO2 emissions at 7304 (4400–9657) Tg, with the maximum estimate exceeding the minimum by over two-fold. The uncertainty exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity: it is highest in low-emission regions like Australia and the Middle East (6.0–7.0 fold difference), whereas traditional hotspots like Africa show lower divergence (Approximately 2 fold). Temporally, a distinct decadal shift was identified: global emissions declined from 2003 to 2013 due to reduced tropical burning, but reversed to an increasing trend from 2013 to 2023, driven by intensified fires in northern high-latitudes and extreme events. Comparisons confirm that the MBEI mean provides a robust central estimate, while its max-min range effectively encompasses other major inventories. By providing explicit uncertainty bounds, MBEI enhances the reliability of atmospheric modeling and climate assessments. The dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18104830 (Liu and Yin, 2025).