Climate Change, Forest Fires, and Health in California

Wildfires in Mediterranean regions have become a serious problem, and it is currently the main cause of forest loss. Numerous prediction methods have been applied worldwide to estimate future fire activity and area burned in order to provide a stable basis for future allocation of fire-fighting resources. The present study investigated the performance of an artificial neural network (ANN) in burned area size prediction and to assess the evolution of future wildfires and the area concerned under climate change in southern Spain. The study area comprised 39.41 km2 of land burned from 2000 to 2014. ANNs were used in two subsequential phases: classifying the size of the wildfires and predicting the burned surface for fires larger than 30,000 m2. Matrix of confusion and 10-fold cross-validations were used to evaluate ANN classification and mean absolute deviation, root mean square error, mean absolute percent error and bias, which were the metrics used for burned area prediction. The success rate achieved was above 60–70% depending on the zone. An average temperature increase of 3 °C and a 20% increase in wind speed during 2071–2100 results in a significant increase of the number of fires, up to triple the current figure, resulting in seven times the average yearly burned surface depending on the zone and the climate change scenario.

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Global warming in Amazonia: impacts and Mitigation

Acta Amazonica ◽

10.1590/s0044-59672009000400030 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 39 (4) ◽

pp. 1003-1011 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Philip Martin Fearnside

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Forest Fires ◽

El Niño ◽

El Nino ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Carbon Accounting ◽

Amazon Forest ◽

Temperature Oscillations

Global warming has potentially catastrophic impacts in Amazonia, while at the same time maintenance of the Amazon forest offers one of the most valuable and cost-effective options for mitigating climate change. We know that the El Niño phenomenon, caused by temperature oscillations of surface water in the Pacific, has serious impacts in Amazonia, causing droughts and forest fires (as in 1997-1998). Temperature oscillations in the Atlantic also provoke severe droughts (as in 2005). We also know that Amazonian trees die both from fires and from water stress under hot, dry conditions. In addition, water recycled through the forest provides rainfall that maintains climatic conditions appropriate for tropical forest, especially in the dry season. What we need to know quickly, through intensified research, includes progress in representing El Niño and the Atlantic oscillations in climatic models, representation of biotic feedbacks in models used for decision-making about global warming, and narrowing the range of estimating climate sensitivity to reduce uncertainty about the probability of very severe impacts. Items that need to be negotiated include the definition of "dangerous" climate change, with the corresponding maximum levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mitigation of global warming must include maintaining the Amazon forest, which has benefits for combating global warming from two separate roles: cutting the flow the emissions of carbon each year from the rapid pace of deforestation, and avoiding emission of the stock of carbon in the remaining forest that can be released by various ways, including climate change itself. Barriers to rewarding forest maintenance include the need for financial rewards for both of these roles. Other needs are for continued reduction of uncertainty regarding emissions and deforestation processes, as well as agreement on the basis of carbon accounting. As one of the countries most subject to impacts of climate change, Brazil must assume the leadership in fighting global warming.

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Forest fires and climate-induced tree range shifts in the western US

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-26838-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Avery P. Hill ◽

Christopher B. Field

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Fire Management ◽

Range Shifts ◽

Inventory Analysis ◽

Plant Populations ◽

Wildfire Occurrence ◽

Western Us ◽

The Difference ◽

Climate Space

AbstractDue to climate change, plant populations experience environmental conditions to which they are not adapted. Our understanding of the next century’s vegetation geography depends on the distance, direction, and rate at which plant distributions shift in response to a changing climate. In this study we test the sensitivity of tree range shifts (measured as the difference between seedling and mature tree ranges in climate space) to wildfire occurrence, using 74,069 Forest Inventory Analysis plots across nine states in the western United States. Wildfire significantly increased the seedling-only range displacement for 2 of the 8 tree species in which seedling-only plots were displaced from tree-plus-seedling plots in the same direction with and without recent fire. The direction of climatic displacement was consistent with that expected for warmer and drier conditions. The greater seedling-only range displacement observed across burned plots suggests that fire can accelerate climate-related range shifts and that fire and fire management will play a role in the rate of vegetation redistribution in response to climate change.

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Climate change and forest management affect forest fire risk in Fennoscandia

10.35614/isbn.9789523361355 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Management ◽

Black Carbon ◽

Forest Fire ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Fire Risk ◽

The Arctic ◽

Large Fires ◽

Forest Fire Risk ◽

Fire Ignition

Forest and wildland fires are a natural part of ecosystems worldwide, but large fires in particular can cause societal, economic and ecological disruption. Fires are an important source of greenhouse gases and black carbon that can further amplify and accelerate climate change. In recent years, large forest fires in Sweden demonstrate that the issue should also be considered in other parts of Fennoscandia. This final report of the project “Forest fires in Fennoscandia under changing climate and forest cover (IBA ForestFires)” funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, synthesises current knowledge of the occurrence, monitoring, modelling and suppression of forest fires in Fennoscandia. The report also focuses on elaborating the role of forest fires as a source of black carbon (BC) emissions over the Arctic and discussing the importance of international collaboration in tackling forest fires. The report explains the factors regulating fire ignition, spread and intensity in Fennoscandian conditions. It highlights that the climate in Fennoscandia is characterised by large inter-annual variability, which is reflected in forest fire risk. Here, the majority of forest fires are caused by human activities such as careless handling of fire and ignitions related to forest harvesting. In addition to weather and climate, fuel characteristics in forests influence fire ignition, intensity and spread. In the report, long-term fire statistics are presented for Finland, Sweden and the Republic of Karelia. The statistics indicate that the amount of annually burnt forest has decreased in Fennoscandia. However, with the exception of recent large fires in Sweden, during the past 25 years the annually burnt area and number of fires have been fairly stable, which is mainly due to effective fire mitigation. Land surface models were used to investigate how climate change and forest management can influence forest fires in the future. The simulations were conducted using different regional climate models and greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Simulations, extending to 2100, indicate that forest fire risk is likely to increase over the coming decades. The report also highlights that globally, forest fires are a significant source of BC in the Arctic, having adverse health effects and further amplifying climate warming. However, simulations made using an atmospheric dispersion model indicate that the impact of forest fires in Fennoscandia on the environment and air quality is relatively minor and highly seasonal. Efficient forest fire mitigation requires the development of forest fire detection tools including satellites and drones, high spatial resolution modelling of fire risk and fire spreading that account for detailed terrain and weather information. Moreover, increasing the general preparedness and operational efficiency of firefighting is highly important. Forest fires are a large challenge requiring multidisciplinary research and close cooperation between the various administrative operators, e.g. rescue services, weather services, forest organisations and forest owners is required at both the national and international level.

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Evaluation of critical atmospheric patterns for the occurrence of forest fires in a climate change context in the northwest of Argentine Patagonia.

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-610 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Verónica Dankiewicz ◽

Matilde M. Rusticucci ◽

Soledad M. Collazo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Fire Hazard ◽

Fire Danger ◽

Fire Season ◽

Historical Period ◽

Fire Weather Index ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Argentine Patagonia ◽

In Fire

<p>Forest fires are a global phenomenon and result from complex interactions between weather and climate conditions, ignition sources, and humans. Understanding these relationships will contribute to the development of management strategies for their mitigation and adaptation. In the context of climate change, fire hazard conditions are expected to increase in many regions of the world due to projected changes in climate, which include an increase in temperatures and the occurrence of more intense droughts. In Argentina, northwestern Patagonia is an area very sensitive to these changes because of its climate, vegetation, the urbanizations highly exposed to fires, and the proximity of two of the largest and oldest National Parks in the country. The main objective of this work is to analyze the possible influence of climate change on some atmospheric patterns related to fire danger in northwestern Argentine Patagonia. The data were obtained from two CMIP5 global climate models CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 and GFDL-ESM2G and the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble, in the historical experiment and two representative concentration pathways: RCP2.6 and RCP8.5. The data used in this study cover the region's fire season (FS), from September to April, and were divided into five periods of 20 years each, a historical period (1986-2005), which was compared with four future periods: near (2021-2040), medium (2041-2060), far (2061-2080) and very far (2081-2100). The statistical distribution of the monthly composite fields of the FS was studied for some of the main fire drivers: sea surface temperature in the region of the index EN3.4 (SST EN3.4), sea level pressure anomalies &#8203;&#8203;(SLP), surface air temperature anomalies (TAS), the Antarctic Oscillation Index (AOI) and monthly accumulated precipitation (PR). In addition, the partial correlation coefficient was calculated to determine the independent contribution of each atmospheric variable to the Fire Weather Index (FWI), used as a proxy for the mean FS danger. As a result, we observed that SST EN3.4 is the only one that could indicate a reduction in fire danger in the future, although no variable presented a significant contribution to the FWI with respect to the others. In the RCP8.5 scenario, greater fire danger is projected by the TAS, the PR, the SLP, and relative by the AOI, while in the RCP2.6 scenario, only the TAS shows influence leading to an increase, which would be offset by the opposite influence of SST EN3.4 for the same periods in this scenario. In conclusion, in RCP8.5 it could be assumed that there is a trend towards an increase in fire danger given the influence in this sense of most of the variables analyzed, but not in RCP2.6 where there would be no significant changes.</p>

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Climate Change as a Threat to Brazil’s Amazon Forest

International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development ◽

10.4018/jsesd.2013070101 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Philip M. Fearnside

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Woody Vegetation ◽

Amazon Forest ◽

Atmospheric Concentration ◽

Current Century ◽

Climate Convention ◽

Definition Of

Climate changes predicted for Brazilian Amazonia place much of the forest in danger of dieoff from the combined effect of drought and heat within the current century, and much sooner for some areas. Increases are expected in the frequency and magnitude of droughts from both the El Niño phenomenon and from the Atlantic dipole. These changes imply increased frequency of forest fires. Forest death from drought, fires or both would be followed by a transformation either to a savanna or to some type of low-biomass woody vegetation, in either case with greatly reduced biodiversity. This risk provides justification for Brazil to change its negotiating positions under the Climate Convention to accept a binding target now for national emissions and to support a low atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (400 ppmv or less) as the definition of “dangerous” interference with the climate system.

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Using of Production Wastes in Stormwater Drainage Purification

Materials Science Forum ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/msf.1006.194 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1006 ◽

pp. 194-201

Author(s):

Anatolii Grytsenko ◽

Olha Rybalova ◽

Anton Matsak ◽

Sergey Artemiev

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Surface Runoff ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Ecological Safety ◽

Stormwater Treatment ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Production Wastes ◽

Water Ecosystem ◽

Production Company

The climate change prognosis in the Kharkiv region shows an increasing danger of forest fires and negative consequences for the environmental components. In this article the negative impact from forests fires on the environment have been analyzed. The new method is proposed for cleaning the surface runoff, which is formed after a forest fire, by filtering in artificial or natural through the biological trenches using basalt chips of 0,5–2 mm in size as a filtration nozzle. Use of the proposed method of surface runoff purification will improve the water ecosystem sanitation and the increase of the ecological safety due to the production company wastes utilization. The proposed method of stormwater treatment is easy to operate, ecologically friendly and economically advantageous.

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Risk of large-scale fires in boreal forests of Finland under changing climate

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-16-239-2016 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 239-253 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

I. Lehtonen ◽

A. Venäläinen ◽

M. Kämäräinen ◽

H. Peltola ◽

H. Gregow

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Fire ◽

Forest Fires ◽

Large Scale ◽

Fire Danger ◽

Short Period ◽

Projected Change ◽

Fire Activity ◽

Model Variability ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The target of this work was to assess the impact of projected climate change on forest-fire activity in Finland with special emphasis on large-scale fires. In addition, we were particularly interested to examine the inter-model variability of the projected change of fire danger. For this purpose, we utilized fire statistics covering the period 1996–2014 and consisting of almost 20 000 forest fires, as well as daily meteorological data from five global climate models under representative concentration pathway RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The model data were statistically downscaled onto a high-resolution grid using the quantile-mapping method before performing the analysis. In examining the relationship between weather and fire danger, we applied the Canadian fire weather index (FWI) system. Our results suggest that the number of large forest fires may double or even triple during the present century. This would increase the risk that some of the fires could develop into real conflagrations which have become almost extinct in Finland due to active and efficient fire suppression. However, the results reveal substantial inter-model variability in the rate of the projected increase of forest-fire danger, emphasizing the large uncertainty related to the climate change signal in fire activity. We moreover showed that the majority of large fires in Finland occur within a relatively short period in May and June due to human activities and that FWI correlates poorer with the fire activity during this time of year than later in summer when lightning is a more important cause of fires.

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