The influence of variability on fire weather conditions in high latitude regions under present and future global warming

Abstract

Recent years have seen unprecedented fire activity at high latitudes and knowledge of future wildfire risk is key for adaptation and risk management. Here we present a systematic characterization of the probability distributions (PDFs) of fire weather conditions, and how it arises from underlying meteorological drivers of change, in five boreal forest regions, for pre-industrial conditions and different global warming levels. Using initial condition ensembles from two global climate models to characterize regional variability, we quantify the PDFs of daily maximum surface air temperature (SATmax), precipitation, wind, and minimum relative humidity (RHmin), and their evolution with global temperature. The resulting aggregate change in fire risk is quantified using the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI). In all regions we find increases in both means and upper tails of the FWI distribution, and a widening suggesting increased variability. The main underlying drivers are the projected increase in mean daily SATmax and decline in RHmin, marked already at +1 and +2 °C global warming. The largest changes occur in Canada, where we estimate a doubling of days with moderate-or-higher FWI between +1 °C and +4 °C global warming, and the smallest in Alaska. While both models exhibit the same general features of change with warming, differences in magnitude of the shifts exist, particularly for RHmin, where the bias compared to reanalysis is also largest. Given its importance for the FWI, RHmin evolution is identified as an area in need of further research. While occurrence and severity of wildfires ultimately depend also on factors such as ignition and fuel, we show how improved knowledge of meteorological conditions conducive to high wildfire risk, already changing across the high latitudes, can be used as a first indication of near-term changes. Our results confirm that continued global warming can rapidly push boreal forest regions into increasingly unfamiliar fire weather regimes.