Attributing extreme fire risk in Western Canada to human emissions

Kirchmeier‐Young, Megan C.; Zwiers, Francis W.; Gillett, Nathan P.; Cannon, Alex J.

doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2030-0

Cited by 101 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Fire weather Beer and Williams 1995;Flannigan et al 1998;Miller and Schlegel 2006;Moriondo et al 2006;Malevsky-Malevich et al 2008;Bedia et al 2015 Fire danger rating Flannigan andVan Wagner 1991;Bergeron and Flannigan 1995;Flannigan et al 2000;Amiro et al 2001;Williams et al 2001;Kochtubajda et al 2006;Pitman et al 2007;Liu et al 2010;Flannigan et al 2013;Wang et al 2015 Area burned Price and Rind 1994;Weber and Flannigan 1997;Flannigan et al 2005Flannigan et al , 2009aFlannigan et al , 2009bCary et al 2006;Podur and Wotton 2010;Wimberly and Liu 2014;Bedia et al 2015;Wu et al 2015 example, lower relative humidity, higher temperatures, and modified precipitation patterns (Flannigan and Van Wagner 1991;Flannigan et al 2000;Kochtubajda et al 2006). Research suggests that anthropogenic climate change has already increased the likelihood of extreme fire risk in western Canada by 1.5 to 6 times during the current decade (Kirchmeier-Young et al 2017). Anthropogenic climate change is also anticipated to affect fire season length (Wotton and Flannigan 1993;Flannigan et al 2013), with observed trends in keeping with predictions.…”

Section: Predicted Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

et al. 2019

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Recently, the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: a Second Notice was issued in response to ongoing and largely unabated environmental degradation due to anthropogenic activities. In the warning, humanity is urged to practice more environmentally sustainable alternatives to business as usual to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes. Following the success of their warning, the Alliance of World Scientists called for discipline-specific follow-up papers. This paper is an answer to that call for the topic of wildland fire. Across much of Canada and the world, wildfires are anticipated to increase in severity and frequency in response to anthropogenic activities. The world scientists’ second warning provides the opportunity for wildland fire researchers to raise the profile of the potential impacts that anthropogenic activities are likely to have on future fire regimes and, in return, what impacts future fire regimes may have on humanity. We discuss how wildfire is related to several issues of concern raised in the world scientists’ second warning, including climate change, human population growth, biodiversity and forests, and freshwater availability. Furthermore, we touch on the potential future health impacts and challenges to wildfire suppression and management in Canada. In essence, our wildfire scientists’ warning to humanity is that we, as a society, will have to learn to live with more fire on the landscape. We provide some recommendations on how we might move forward to prepare for and adapt to future wildfire regimes in Canada. Although this paper is primarily Canadian in focus, the concepts and information herein also draw from international examples and are of relevance globally.

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Section: Predicted Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

et al. 2019

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“…Joint attribution efforts for natural systems are more challenging than attribution of meteorological and climate variables to anthropogenic climate change (Rosenzweig et al, 2008), let alone coupled natural-human processes such as fire. As an alternative, a limited set of attribution studies that focus on atmospheric drivers and enablers of fire have been conducted but have often been limited geographically and methodologically (e.g., Gillett et al, 2004;Kirchmeier-Young et al, 2017;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Emergence of Anthropogenic Climate Change in Fire Weather Indices

Abatzoglou

Williams

Barbero

2019

Geophysical Research Letters

375

287

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Changes in global fire activity are influenced by a multitude of factors including land‐cover change, policies, and climatic conditions. This study uses 17 climate models to evaluate when changes in fire weather, as realized through the Fire Weather Index, emerge from the expected range of internal variability due to anthropogenic climate change using the time of emergence framework. Anthropogenic increases in extreme Fire Weather Index days emerge for 22% of burnable land area globally by 2019, including much of the Mediterranean and the Amazon. By the midtwenty‐first century, emergence among the different Fire Weather Index metrics occurs for 33–62% of burnable lands. Emergence of heightened fire weather becomes more widespread as a function of global temperature change. At 2 °C above preindustrial levels, the area of emergence is half that for 3 °C. These results highlight increases in fire weather conditions with human‐caused climate change and incentivize local adaptation efforts to limit detrimental fire impacts.

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“…For example, in Alberta alone, wildfire impacts an average of ∼208,000 ha every year (2006–2015; Government of Alberta, 2017) with fires liberating large quantities of the C stored in peatlands across the province to the atmosphere (approximately 4.7 × 10 9 g of C released per year; Turetsky et al, ). With fire frequency expected to roughly double by the end of the century, from enhanced warming and longer fire seasons (Wotton & Flannigan, ; Flannigan, Stocks, Turetsky, & Wotton, ; Flannigan et al ., ; Kirchmeier‐Young, Zwiers, Gillet, & Cannon, ; Hanes, Wang, Jain, Parisien, & Little, ), as well as an increase in the number of large high‐intensity wildfires (Tymstra et al ., ), boreal peatlands may be vulnerable to changes in wildfire regime under a rapidly changing climate. Despite these increasing pressures, the impact of fire on DOC concentration, quality, and export across boreal peatlands is not always consistent, with studies showing an increase (McEachern, Prepas, Gibson, & Dinsmore, ), no change (Carignan, D'Arcy, & Lamontagne, ; Lamontagne, Carignan, D'Arcy, Prairie, & Paré, ; Marchand et al ., ), or decrease (Betts & Jones, ) in DOC concentration in surface waters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrogeologic setting overrides any influence of wildfire on pore water dissolved organic carbon concentration and quality at a boreal fen

et al. 2019

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Western Boreal Canada could experience drier hydrometeorological conditions under future climatic changes, and the drying of nonpermafrost peatlands can lead to higher frequency and extent of wildfires. Despite increasing pressures, our understanding of the impact of fire on dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and quality across boreal peatlands is not consistent. This study capitalizes on the rare opportunity of having 3 years of prefire and 3 years of postfire DOC data at a treed, moderate‐rich fen in the Western Boreal Plain, northern Alberta, to investigate wildfire effects on peatland DOC dynamics. We investigated whether a wildfire facilitated any changes in the pore water DOC concentration and quality. There was very little impact of the fire directly, with no significant changes in DOC concentrations postfire. We highlight that DOC patterns are more likely to be controlled by local hydrogeological factors than any effect of fire. Fall hydrological conditions and subsequent winter storage processes impose a strong control on DOC concentrations the following year. We suggest that the presence or absence of concrete ground frost in the fen (determined by fall water table position) influences overwinter storage changes, controlling the effect that DOC‐poor snowmelt may have on pore water concentrations. However, an increase in SUVA254 was found 2 years postfire, indicating an increase in aromaticity. These results highlight the need for careful consideration of the local hydrogeologic setting and hydrological regime when predicting and analysing trends in DOC concentrations and quality.

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Attributing extreme fire risk in Western Canada to human emissions

Cited by 101 publications

References 43 publications

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

Global Emergence of Anthropogenic Climate Change in Fire Weather Indices

Hydrogeologic setting overrides any influence of wildfire on pore water dissolved organic carbon concentration and quality at a boreal fen

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