Biogeosciences, 18, 787–804, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-787-2021 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Technical note: Low meteorological influence found in 2019 Amazonia fires Douglas I. Kelley1, Chantelle Burton2, Chris Huntingford1, Megan A. J. Brown1,3, Rhys Whitley4, and Ning Dong5 1UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BB, UK 2Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK 3DISCnet Centre for Doctoral Training, School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK 4Natural Perils Pricing, Commercial and Consumer Portfolio and Product, Suncorp Group, Sydney, Australia 5Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia Correspondence: Douglas I. Kelley (
[email protected]) and Chantelle Burton (chantelle.burton@metoffice.gov.uk) Received: 3 April 2020 – Discussion started: 11 May 2020 Revised: 25 October 2020 – Accepted: 24 November 2020 – Published: 4 February 2021 Abstract. The sudden increase in Amazon fires early in the being caused by meteorological conditions alone, decreasing 2019 fire season made global headlines. While it has been to 6 %–7 % along the agricultural–humid forest interface in heavily speculated that the fires were caused by deliberate Brazil’s central states and 8 % in Paraguay and Bolivia dry human ignitions or human-induced landscape changes, there forests. Our results suggest that changes in land use, cover have also been suggestions that meteorological conditions or management are the likely drivers of the substantial in- could have played a role. Here, we ask two questions: were crease in the 2019 early fire season burnt area, especially in the 2019 fires in the Amazon unprecedented in the histori- Brazil.