Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California

Abstract California has experienced devastating autumn wildfires in recent years. These autumn wildfires have coincided with extreme fire weather conditions during periods of strong offshore winds coincident with unusually dry vegetation enabled by anomalously warm conditions and late onset of autumn precipitation. In this study, we quantify observed changes in the occurrence and magnitude of meteorological factors that enable extreme autumn wildfires in California, and use climate model simulations to ascertain whether these changes are attributable to human-caused climate change. We show that state-wide increases in autumn temperature (∼1 °C) and decreases in autumn precipitation (∼30%) over the past four…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: DMS-1520873
• NC
  National Center for Atmospheric Research
• SU
  Stanford University
• ZF
  Zegar Family Foundation
• UO
  University of California, Los Angeles