Science Source
Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013
- States that climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts
- Uses 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
- Shows 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
- Shows that 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
- States that if these fire weather changes are coupled with ignition sources and available fuel, they could markedly impact global ecosystems, societies, economies and climate
Related Content
Headline
![](/sites/default/files/styles/card_resource/public/headlines/Clvp_HfVEAAEi1Z.jpg?itok=Xfr3P71R)
Jul 7, 2016 | The Weather Network
Fort McMurray fire costliest disaster for Canadian insurers
Headline
![](/sites/default/files/styles/card_resource/public/headlines/Screen%20Shot%202016-07-06%20at%208.32.25%20AM.png?itok=Wy41OfGF)
Jul 6, 2016 | USA Today
2 months later, massive Canadian wildfire finally 'under control'
Real Time Data
![](/sites/default/files/styles/card_resource/public/data/Screen%20Shot%202016-06-30%20at%2011.59.54%20AM.png?itok=41ZkuGr1)
Jun 30, 2016 | PropertyLineMaps / Joseph Elfelt
Alberta Wildland Fires
Headline
![](/sites/default/files/styles/card_resource/public/headlines/01-boreal-forest-nasa.ngsversion.1466703666154.jpg?itok=3SLqzJQV)
Jun 23, 2016 | National Geographic
Forest Fires Can Heat Up the Whole Planet