Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013

Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use 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. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km(2) (25.3%) of the Earth's vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. We also show 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…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Award: NNH11ZDA001N
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Awards: NNH11ZDA001N-FIRES, NNX11AB89G, NNH11ZDA001N
• NO
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• SM
  Science Mission Directorate
• NH
  NASA Headquarters