Exacerbated fires in Mediterranean Europe due to anthropogenic warming projected with non-stationary climate-fire models

The observed trend towards warmer and drier conditions in southern Europe is projected to continue in the next decades, possibly leading to increased risk of large fires. However, an assessment of climate change impacts on fires at and above the 1.5 °C Paris target is still missing. Here, we estimat...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Turco, Marco, Bedia, Joaquín, Jerez, Sonia, Montávez, Juan Pedro, Llasat Botija, María del Carmen, Provenzale, A. (Antonello), Rosa Cánovas, Juan José
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/147661
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/147661
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Incendis
Canvi climàtic
Mediterrània (Regió)
Fires
Climatic change
Mediterranean Region
Descripción
Sumario:The observed trend towards warmer and drier conditions in southern Europe is projected to continue in the next decades, possibly leading to increased risk of large fires. However, an assessment of climate change impacts on fires at and above the 1.5 °C Paris target is still missing. Here, we estimate future summer burned area in Mediterranean Europe under 1.5, 2, and 3 °C global warming scenarios, accounting for possible modifications of climate-fire relationships under changed climatic conditions owing to productivity alterations. We found that such modifications could be beneficial, roughly halving the fire-intensifying signals. In any case, the burned area is robustly projected to increase. The higher the warming level is, the larger is the increase of burned area, ranging from ~40% to ~100% across the scenarios. Our results indicate that significant benefits would be obtained if warming were limited to well below 2 °C.