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Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013

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posted on 2023-05-18, 11:48 authored by Jolly, WM, Cochrane, MA, Freeborn, PH, Holden, ZA, Brown, TJ, Grant WilliamsonGrant Williamson, David BowmanDavid Bowman
Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use three daily global climate data sets and three fire danger indices to develop a simple annual metric of fire weather season length, and map spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. We also show a doubling (108.1% increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (>1.0 σ above the historical mean) and an increased global frequency of long fire weather seasons across 62.4 million km2 (53.4%) during the second half of the study period. If these fire weather changes are coupled with ignition sources and available fuel, they could markedly impact global ecosystems, societies, economies and climate.

History

Publication title

Nature Communications

Volume

6

Article number

7537

Number

7537

Pagination

1-11

ISSN

2041-1723

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

Copyright 2015 5 Macmillan Publishers Limited

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Effects of climate change on Australia (excl. social impacts)

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