ENSO‐Related Fire Weather Changes in Southeast and Equatorial Asia: A Quantitative Evaluation Using Fire Weather Index

Abstract

AbstractInterannual variability of tropical fire activity has been linked to the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here we analyze changes in fire and simultaneous fire weather related to ENSO over Southeast (SEAS) and Equatorial Asia (EQAS) and quantitively evaluate the contribution of key meteorological variables to the fire weather variations for the past decades. During the fire seasons, large increases in fires emerge in El Niño years, which greatly coincides with the more fire‐susceptible weather conditions compared to La Niña years. Moreover, the fires exhibit a more significant correlation with the ENSO index in El Niño years, mainly due to the influence of asymmetry response of the fire weather to ENSO. Composite analysis shows that it is the positive anomalous low‐level geopotential height and less water vapor transportation over SEAS (March–May) and EQAS (August–October) during El Niño that forms the fire‐favoring weather. By conducting tests in calculating fire weather index (FWI) under different ideal conditions, we identified the daily precipitation as the dominant driver of FWI variation, with the contribution reaching 65.5%–77.5% and 60.9%–90.5% for SEAS and EQAS respectively, while decreased relative humidity induces nearly a quarter of increases in FWI in El Niño years. Changes in temperature and wind speed, however, rarely perturb the fire weather for both SEAS and EQAS regions. The quantitative evaluations of individual meteorological variables in shaping fire weather as well as their asymmetrical response in ENSO years could support fire management during fire seasons in Tropical Asia.