Global wildland fire season severity in the 21st century
Abstract
We used Cumulative Severity Rating (CSR), a weather-based fire danger metric, to examine the potential influence of climate change on global fire season severity. The potential influence of climate change on fire season length was also addressed. We used three General Circulation Models (GCMs) and three emission scenarios to calculate the CSR and fire season length for mid-century (2041–2050) and late century (2091–2100) relative to the 1971–2000 baseline. Our results suggest significant increases in the CSR for all models and scenarios. Increases were greatest (more than three times greater than the baseline CSR) for the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the century. Fire season length changes were also most pronounced at the end of the century and for northern high latitudes where fire season lengths will increase by more than 20days per year. The implications from this study are that fire seasons will be more severe in future and that conventional fire management approaches may no longer be effective.
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Climate warming is leading to greater fire danger, including in regions where fire was previously uncommon.
“Climate warming is leading to greater fire danger, including in regions where fire was previously uncommon (Flannigan et al., 2013; Higuera & Abatzoglou, 2021; Shukla et al., 2019).”
From Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply (2021) · cites this paper as Flannigan et al., 2013
Climate warming is projected to reduce fuel moisture and make fire-conducive weather more common, while climate-linked earlier springs are advancing phenology.
“Additionally, projected climate warming is expected to lower fuel moisture and create more frequent weather conditions conducive to fire ignition and spread (45), and earlier springs attributed to climate change are leading to accelerated phenology (42).”
From Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States (2017) · cites this paper as [45]
Climatic changes are expected to increase fire season severity over the coming decades.
“Climatic changes are implicated in global fire variations23 and are expected to increase fire season severity over the coming decades24.”
From Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013 (2015) · cites this paper as [24]
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“Climate warming is leading to greater fire danger, including in regions where fire was previously uncommon (Flannigan et al., 2013; Higuera & Abatzoglou, 2021; Shukla et al., 2019).”
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- Authors
- Flannigan, M., Cantin, A. S., de Groot, W. J., Wotton, M., Newbery, A., & Gowman, L. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Canadian Forest Service (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Flannigan, Mike
- Venue
- Forest Ecology and Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-04
- Volume
- 294
- Pages
- 54-61
- ISSN
- 0378-1127 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2008969571
- Cited by
- 822
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 63 · 2025: 76 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 86 · 2022: 103 · 2021: 82 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 62 · 2018: 53 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 34 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 29.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Forest Ecology and Management (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Keywords
- forest fires, fire danger, climate change impacts, fire season length, global climate models, emission scenarios, climate change projections, fire management, high latitudes
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