scholarly journals Likelihood of unprecedented drought and fire weather during Australia’s 2019 megafires

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dougal T. Squire ◽  
Doug Richardson ◽  
James S. Risbey ◽  
Amanda S. Black ◽  
Vassili Kitsios ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Return Period ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Fire Weather ◽  
Climate Modes ◽  
Current Climate ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Two Indices

AbstractBetween June 2019 and March 2020, thousands of wildfires spread devastation across Australia at the tragic cost of many lives, vast areas of burnt forest, and estimated economic losses upward of AU$100 billion. Exceptionally hot and dry weather conditions, and preceding years of severe drought across Australia, contributed to the severity of the wildfires. Here we present analysis of a very large ensemble of initialized climate simulations to assess the likelihood of the concurrent drought and fire-weather conditions experienced at that time. We focus on a large region in southeast Australia where these fires were most widespread and define two indices to quantify the susceptibility to fire from drought and fire weather. Both indices were unprecedented in the observed record in 2019. We find that the likelihood of experiencing such extreme susceptibility to fire in the current climate was 0.5%, equivalent to a 200 year return period. The conditional probability is many times higher than this when we account for the states of key climate modes that impact Australian weather and climate. Drought and fire-weather conditions more extreme than those experienced in 2019 are also possible in the current climate.

scholarly journals A Bayesian approach to exploring the influence of climate variability modes on fire weather conditions and lightning-ignited wildfires

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryson C. Bates ◽  
Andrew J. Dowdy ◽  
Lachlan McCaw
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Fire Weather ◽  
Prescribed Burn ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Climate Modes

AbstractUnderstanding the relationships between large-scale, low-frequency climate variability modes, fire weather conditions and lighting-ignited wildfires has implications for fire-weather prediction, fire management and conservation. This article proposes a Bayesian network framework for quantifying the influence of climate modes on fire weather conditions and occurrence of lightning-ignited wildfires. The main objectives are to describe and demonstrate a probabilistic framework for identifying and quantifying the joint and individual relationships that comprise the climate-wildfire system; gain insight into potential causal mechanisms and pathways; gauge the influence of climate modes on fire weather and lightning-ignition relative to that of local-scale conditions alone; assess the predictive skill of the network; and motivate the use of techniques that are intuitive, flexible and for which user‐friendly software is freely available. A case study illustrates the application of the framework to a forested region in southwest Australia. Indices for six climate variability modes are considered along with two hazard variables (observed fire weather conditions and prescribed burn area), and a 41-year record of lightning-ignited wildfire counts. Using the case study data set, we demonstrate that the proposed framework: (1) is based on reasonable assumptions provided the joint density of the variables is converted to multivariate normal; (2) generates a parsimonious and interpretable network architecture; (3) identifies known or partially known relationships between the variables; (4) has potential to be used in a predictive setting for fire weather conditions; and (5) climate modes are more directly related to fire weather conditions than to lightning-ignition counts.

scholarly journals Modeling regional impacts and resilience to water service disruptions in urban economies

2021 ◽  
pp. 239980832199870
Author(s):  
Sheree A Pagsuyoin ◽  
Joost R Santos
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Urban Region ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
National Capital Region ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
The Impact

Water is a critical natural resource that sustains the productivity of many economic sectors, whether directly or indirectly. Climate change alongside rapid growth and development are a threat to water sustainability and regional productivity. In this paper, we develop an extension to the economic input-output model to assess the impact of water supply disruptions to regional economies. The model utilizes the inoperability variable, which measures the extent to which an infrastructure system or economic sector is unable to deliver its intended output. While the inoperability concept has been utilized in previous applications, this paper offers extensions that capture the time-varying nature of inoperability as the sectors recover from a disruptive event, such as drought. The model extension is capable of inserting inoperability adjustments within the drought timeline to capture time-varying likelihoods and severities, as well as the dependencies of various economic sectors on water. The model was applied to case studies of severe drought in two regions: (1) the state of Massachusetts (MA) and (2) the US National Capital Region (NCR). These regions were selected to contrast drought resilience between a mixed urban–rural region (MA) and a highly urban region (NCR). These regions also have comparable overall gross domestic products despite significant differences in the distribution and share of the economic sectors comprising each region. The results of the case studies indicate that in both regions, the utility and real estate sectors suffer the largest economic loss; nonetheless, results also identify region-specific sectors that incur significant losses. For the NCR, three sectors in the top 10 ranking of highest economic losses are government-related, whereas in the MA, four sectors in the top 10 are manufacturing sectors. Furthermore, the accommodation sector has also been included in the NCR case intuitively because of the high concentration of museums and famous landmarks. In contrast, the Wholesale Trade sector was among the sectors with the highest economic losses in the MA case study because of its large geographic size conducive for warehouses used as nodes for large-scale supply chain networks. Future modeling extensions could potentially include analysis of water demand and supply management strategies that can enhance regional resilience against droughts. Other regional case studies can also be pursued in future efforts to analyze various categories of drought severity beyond the case studies featured in this paper.

Title: Disturbance Causes Variation in Sub-Canopy Fire Weather Conditions

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wilson ◽  
Ross A. Bradstock ◽  
Michael Bedward
Keyword(s):  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Fire Weather

scholarly journals Risk Analysis and Management of Moored Ships in Ports

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana V. Pinheiro ◽  
Conceição J. E. M. Fortes ◽  
João A. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Management ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Complete Information ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Modular System ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Sea Waves ◽  
Bad Weather ◽  
Port Areas

The risks associated with mooring of ships are a major concern for port and maritime authorities. Sea waves and extreme weather conditions can lead to excessive movements of vessels and mooring loads affecting the safety of ships, cargo, passengers, crew or port infrastructures. Normally, port activities such as ships’ approach manoeuvres and loading/unloading operations, are conditioned or suspended based solely on weather or wave forecasts, causing large economic losses. Nevertheless, it has been shown that some of the most hazardous events with moored ships happen on days with mild sea and wind conditions, being the culprit long waves and resonance phenomena. Bad weather conditions can be managed with an appropriate or reinforced mooring arrangement. A correct risk assessment must be based on the movements of the ship and on the mooring loads, taking into account all the moored ship’s system. In this paper, the development of a forecast and warning system based on the assessment of risks associated with moored ships in port areas, SWAMS ALERT, is detailed. This modular system can be scaled and adapted to any port, providing decision-makers with accurate and complete information on the behaviour of moored ships, movements and mooring loads, allowing a better planning and integrated management of port areas.

scholarly journals RISK FORECAST SYSTEM FOR MOORED SHIPS

2020 ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Liliana PINHEIRO ◽  
Conceicao FORTES ◽  
Maria Teresa REIS ◽  
Joao SANTOS ◽  
Carlos GUEDES SOARES
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Forecast System ◽  
Mooring Forces ◽  
Risk Forecast

Port terminals downtimes lead to large economic losses and largely affect the port's overall competitiveness. In the majority of cases, port activities such as ships' approach maneuvers and loading/unloading operations, are conditioned or suspended, based solely on weather or wave forecasts. These forecasts do not always result in effective hazardous conditions for the ships. Additionally, moored ships often experience problems of excessive movements and mooring forces in apparent good weather conditions. If, instead, one could forecast the ships' movements and mooring forces, risk assessment would be much more accurate. This would allow selecting an appropriate reinforced mooring arrangement and thus minimizing effective terminal downtime. In this paper, the development of a risk forecast system for moored ships, that takes into account all of the moored ship's system, is detailed and an illustration on how it applies to real ports is presented.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/ugDN9Tqno3E

scholarly journals Regional assessment of climate risks using GIS technologies (on the example of the Belgorod Region)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-278
Author(s):  
Yuri Chendev ◽  
Maria Lebedeva ◽  
Olga Krymskaya ◽  
Maria Petina
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Winter Period ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
The Impact

The ongoing climate change requires a quantitative assessment of the impact of weather conditions on the nature and livelihoods of the population. However, to date, the concept of “climate risk” has not been finally defined, and the corresponding terminology is not universally recognized. One manifestation of climate change is an increase in climate variability and extremeness in many regions. At the same time, modern statistics indicate growing worldwide damage from dangerous weather and climate events. The most widely used in climate services is the concept of “Vulnerability index”, which reflects a combination (with or without weighing) of several indicators that indicate the potential damage that climate change can cause to a particular sector of the economy. development of adaptation measures to ensure sustainable development of territories. The main criterion for the vulnerability of the territory from the point of view of meteorological parameters is the extremeness of the basic values: daily air temperature, daily precipitation, maximum wind speed. To fully take into account the possible impacts of extreme climatic conditions on the region’s economy, it is necessary to detail the weather and climate risks taking into account the entire observation network, since significant differences in quantitative assessment are possible. The obtained average regional values of the climate vulnerability indices for the Belgorod Region of the Russian Federation provide 150 points for the winter period, 330 points for the summer season, which indicates the prevalence of extreme weather conditions in the warm season. Most of the territory has a relative influence on climatic phenomena, with the exception of the East and the Southeast Region. Moreover, the eastern part of the region is the most vulnerable in climatic terms.

Use of USGS-Provided Data to Improve Weather and Climate Simulations

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Pielke ◽  
T. J. Lee ◽  
J. H. Copeland ◽  
J. L. Eastman ◽  
C. L. Ziegler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Weather And Climate
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