Extreme wildfire events are linked to global-change-type droughts in the northern Mediterranean
-
Published:2018-03-16
Issue:3
Volume:18
Page:847-856
-
ISSN:1684-9981
-
Container-title:Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
-
language:en
-
Short-container-title:Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.
Author:
Ruffault JulienORCID, Curt ThomasORCID, Martin-StPaul Nicolas K., Moron Vincent, Trigo Ricardo M.
Abstract
Abstract. Increasing drought conditions under global warming are expected to alter the
frequency and distribution of large and high-intensity wildfires. However,
our understanding of the impact of increasing drought on extreme wildfires
events remains incomplete. Here, we analyzed the weather conditions
associated with the extreme wildfires events that occurred in Mediterranean
France during the exceptionally dry summers of 2003 and 2016. We identified
that these fires were related to two distinct shifts in the fire
weather space towards fire weather conditions that had not been explored before and
resulting from specific interactions between different types of drought and
different fire weather types. In 2016, a long-lasting “press drought”
intensified wind-driven fires. In 2003, a “hot drought” combining a
heat wave with a press drought intensified heat-induced fires. Our findings
highlight that increasing drought conditions projected by climate change
scenarios might affect the dryness of fuel compartments and lead to a higher
frequency of extremes wildfires events.
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Reference48 articles.
1. Abatzoglou, J. T. and Williams, A. P.: Impact of anthropogenic climate change
on wildfire across western US forests, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 113, 11770–11775,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113, 2016. 2. Allen, C. D., Breshears, D. D., and McDowell, N. G.: On underestimation of
global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die-off from hotter drought
in the Anthropocene, Ecosphere, 6, 129, https://doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00203.1, 2015. 3. Bador, M., Terray, L., Boé, J., Somot, S., Alias, A., Gibelin, A.-L., and
Dubuisson, B.: Future summer mega-heatwave and record-breaking temperatures in
a warmer France climate, Environ. Res. Lett., 12, 74025, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa751c, 2017. 4. Bowman, D. M. J. S., Williamson, G. J., Abatzoglou, J. T., Kolden, C. A.,
Cochrane, M. A., and Smith, A. M. S.: Human exposure and sensitivity to globally
extreme wildfire events, Nat. Ecol. Evol., 1, 58, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0058, 2017. 5. Cabanne, E., Duché, Y., Savazzi, R., and Tchoukov, M.: Multisite and
multispecies live fuel moisture content (LFMC) series in the French Mediterranean
since 1996, ZENODO, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.162978, 2017.
Cited by
127 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
|
|