I am a physical geographer specialising in the impacts of climate change on wildfire and the consequences for society and the carbon cycle. My research has raised alarm about the rising extent and severity of forest fires globally and advanced how climate models represent fire impacts on the carbon cycle.

My research group at UEA are studying the impact of climate change, ignition patterns, and land use on fire extent and severity, and evaluating the potential for forest management to mitigate wilder fires in future. We are focussing our research on the prediction and mitigation of wildfires with greatest potential to cause damage to society, ecosystems, and natural capital.

I co-lead the State of Wildfires Report, an annual initiative of an international network of fire scientists. This report examines the causes of extreme wildfire events of the latest fire season, evaluates future wildfire risks under climate change, and identifies opportunities to minimise risk through climate action and land management practices.

As a member of the Global Carbon Project (GCP), I contribute to the leading international effort to monitor of the global carbon budget and evaluate how people have disturbed the carbon cycle and climate through fossil fuel emissions and land use. Our findings are used by governments and international organisations to understand and quantify the human footprint on Earth's climate.

Notable Research Outputs:

• Jones, M. W., Veraverbeke, S., Andela, N., Doerr, S. H., Kolden, C., Mataveli, G., ... & Abatzoglou, J. T. (2024). Global rise in forest fire emissions linked to climate change in the extratropics. Science, 386(6719), eadl5889.
• Jones, M. W., Kelley, D. I., Burton, C. A., Di Giuseppe, F., Barbosa, M. L. F., Brambleby, E., ... & Xanthopoulos, G. (2024). State of wildfires 2023–2024. Earth System Science Data, 16(8), 3601-3685.
• Janssen, T. A., Jones, M. W., Finney, D., Van der Werf, G. R., van Wees, D., Xu, W., & Veraverbeke, S. (2023). Extratropical forests increasingly at risk due to lightning fires. Nature Geoscience, 16(12), 1136-1144.
• Jones, M. W., Peters, G. P., Gasser, T., Andrew, R. M., Schwingshackl, C., Gütschow, J., ... & Le Quéré, C. (2023). National contributions to climate change due to historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide since 1850. Scientific Data, 10(1), 155.
• Jones, M. W., Abatzoglou, J. T., Veraverbeke, S., Andela, N., Lasslop, G., Forkel, M., ... & Le Quéré, C. (2022). Global and regional trends and drivers of fire under climate change. Reviews of Geophysics, 60(3), e2020RG000726.
• Bowring, S. P., Jones, M. W., Ciais, P., Guenet, B., & Abiven, S. (2022). Pyrogenic carbon decomposition critical to resolving fire’s role in the Earth system. Nature Geoscience, 15(2), 135-142.
• Jones, M. W., Santín, C., van der Werf, G. R., & Doerr, S. H. (2019). Global fire emissions buffered by the production of pyrogenic carbon. Nature Geoscience, 12(9), 742-747.

PhD in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter (2014-2018). Evaluated the impacts of fire on the quantity and quality of carbon flowing through rivers.

Postdoc, Swansea University (2017-2019). Studied the legacy effects of fire on the land carbon cycle.

Postdoc, UEA School of Environmental Science (2019-2022). Joined as a postdoc to work on the Global Carbon Budget.

NERC Independent Research Fellow (2022-present). Won NERC funding to work on the impact of climate change on the global geography of wildfire.

Affiliations. I am a member of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the Climatic Research Unit at UEA, and the international Global Carbon Project.

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

Climatic Research Unit