Investigating the relationship of meteorological/climatological conditions and wildfires in Greece

Abstract

During the last decades, wildfires have received growing attention because of their major impact on the natural and anthropogenic infrastructures worldwide. The present paper focuses on investigating the relationship between the meteorological/climatological conditions and wildfires in Greece on a variety of temporal and spatial scales. This is performed through the identification of the mean surface temperature, the sea-level pressure, and the absolute humidity anomalies during wildfires at 26 meteorological stations covering both maritime and land environments in the Greek domain and the subsequent construction of the derived GIS surface contour maps. A case study analysis through composite anomaly maps of temperature, pressure, precipitable water, 500-hPa geopotential height, specific humidity, and vector wind is also performed. It is concluded that positive surface temperature, absolute/specific humidity, 500-hPa geopotential height, and vector wind anomalies are observed during wildfires while sea-level pressures are anomalously negative. Furthermore, western regions display lower magnitude anomalies compared to the more central and central-eastern regions during wildfires. The above meteorological/climatological findings in conjunction with medium range to seasonal climate forecasts could be used by wildfire risk managers to provide increased wildfire prediction accuracy and thus benefit many aspects of the natural and built environment.