The Sensitivity of Australian Fire Danger to Climate Change
نویسندگان
چکیده
Global climate change, such as that due to the proposed enhanced greenhouse effect, is likely to have a significant effect on biosphere-atmosphere interactions, including bushfire regimes. This study quantifies the possible impact of climate change on fire regimes by estimating changes in fire weather and the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FDI), an index that is used throughout Australia to estimate fire danger. The CSIRO 9-level general circulation model (CSIRO9 GCM) is used to simulate daily and seasonal fire danger for the present Australian climate and for a doubledCO2 climate. The impact assessment includes validation of the GCMs daily control simulation and the derivation of ‘correction factors’ which improve the accuracy of the fire danger simulation. In summary, the general impact of doubled-CO2 is to increase fire danger at all sites by increasing the number of days of very high and extreme fire danger. Seasonal fire danger responds most to the large CO2-induced changes in maximum temperature.
منابع مشابه
Future Projections of Fire Occurrence in Brazil Using EC-Earth Climate Model
Fire has a fundamental role in the Earth system as it influences global and local ecosystem patterns and processes, such as vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle and climate. Since, in the global context, Brazil is one of the regions with higher fire activity, an assessment is here performed of the sensitivity of the wildfire regime in Brazilian savanna and shrubland areas to ...
متن کاملForest Fire Danger Projections in the Mediterranean using ENSEMBLES Regional Climate Change Scenarios
We present future fire danger scenarios for the countries bordering the Mediterranean areas of Europe and north Africa building on a multi-model ensemble of state-of-the-art regional climate projections from the EU-funded project ENSEMBLES. Fire danger is estimated using the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System and a related set of indices. To overcome some of the limitations of ENSE...
متن کاملBushfire Weather in Southeast Australia: Recent Trends and Proj
Bushfires are an inevitable occurrence in Australia. With more than 800 endemic species, Australian vegetation is dominated by fire-adapted eucalypts. Fire is most common over the tropical savannas of the north, where some parts of the land burn on an annual basis. However, the southeast, where the majority of the population resides, is susceptible to large wildfires that threaten life and prop...
متن کاملOn the projection of future fire danger conditions with various instantaneous/mean-daily data sources
Fire danger indices are descriptors of fire potential in a large area, and combine a few variables that affect the initiation, spread and control of forest fires. The Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) is one of the most widely used fire danger indices in the world, and it is built upon instantaneous values of temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity at noon, together with 24 hourly accu...
متن کاملObjective identification of wind change timing from single station observations Part 1: methodology and comparison with subjective wind change timings
Weather critically influences fire behaviour. Antecedent conditions control availability and moisture content of the fuels, and thus influence the likelihood of ignition. Once a fire is established, its behaviour is influenced by temperature, humidity and wind. Of these, fire behaviour is perhaps most sensitive to changes in wind speed, as evidenced by the sensitivity of the McArthur Forest Fir...
متن کامل