Increasing aridity causes larger and more severe forest fires across Europe.
Glob Chang Biol
; 29(6): 1648-1659, 2023 03.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36517954
Area burned has decreased across Europe in recent decades. This trend may, however, reverse under ongoing climate change, particularly in areas not limited by fuel availability (i.e. temperate and boreal forests). Investigating a novel remote sensing dataset of 64,448 fire events that occurred across Europe between 1986 and 2020, we find a power-law relationship between maximum fire size and area burned, indicating that large fires contribute disproportionally to fire activity in Europe. We further show a robust positive correlation between summer vapor pressure deficit and both maximum fire size (R2 = .19) and maximum burn severity (R2 = .12). Europe's fire regimes are thus highly sensitive to changes in future climate, with the probability for extreme fires more than doubling by the end of the century. Our results suggest that climate change will challenge current fire management approaches and could undermine the ability of Europe's forests to provide ecosystem services to society.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Incendios Forestales
/
Incendios
Tipo de estudio:
Etiology_studies
País/Región como asunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Glob Chang Biol
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Alemania
Pais de publicación:
Reino Unido