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Changes to the drivers of fire weather with a warming climate – a case study of southeast Tasmania

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  • Michael Grose
  • Paul Fox-Hughes
  • Rebecca Harris
  • Nathaniel Bindoff

Abstract

Projected changes to the global climate system have great implications for the incidence of large infrequent fires in many regions. Here we examine the synoptic-scale and local-scale influences on the incidence of extreme fire weather days and consider projections of the large-scale mean climate to explore future fire weather projections. We focus on a case study region with periodic extreme fire dangers; southeast Tasmania, Australia. We compare the performance of a dynamically downscaled regional climate model with Global Climate Model outputs as a tool for examining the local-scale influences while accounting for high regional variability. Many of the worst fires in Tasmania and the southeast Australian region are associated with deep cold fronts and strong prefrontal winds. The downscaled simulations reproduce this synoptic type with greater fidelity than a typical global climate model. The incidence of systems in this category is projected to increase through the century under a high emission scenario, driven mainly by an increase in the temperature of air masses, with little change in the strength of the systems. The regional climate model projected increase in frequency is smaller than for the global climate models used as input, with a large model range and natural variability. We also demonstrate how a blocking Foehn effect and topographic channelling contributed to the extreme conditions during an extreme fire weather day in Tasmania in January 2013. Effects such as these are likely to contribute to high fire danger throughout the century. Regional climate models are useful tools that enable various meteorological drivers of fire danger to be considered in projections of future fire danger. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Grose & Paul Fox-Hughes & Rebecca Harris & Nathaniel Bindoff, 2014. "Changes to the drivers of fire weather with a warming climate – a case study of southeast Tasmania," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 255-269, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:124:y:2014:i:1:p:255-269
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-014-1070-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Scott Power & François Delage & Christine Chung & Greg Kociuba & Kevin Keay, 2013. "Robust twenty-first-century projections of El Niño and related precipitation variability," Nature, Nature, vol. 502(7472), pages 541-545, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jason J. Sharples & Geoffrey J. Cary & Paul Fox-Hughes & Scott Mooney & Jason P. Evans & Michael-Shawn Fletcher & Mike Fromm & Pauline F. Grierson & Rick McRae & Patrick Baker, 2016. "Natural hazards in Australia: extreme bushfire," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 85-99, November.
    2. Sonia Akter & R. Quentin Grafton, 2021. "Do fires discriminate? Socio-economic disadvantage, wildfire hazard exposure and the Australian 2019–20 ‘Black Summer’ fires," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 1-21, April.
    3. Hamish Clarke & Andrew J. Pitman & Jatin Kala & Claire Carouge & Vanessa Haverd & Jason P. Evans, 2016. "An investigation of future fuel load and fire weather in Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 591-605, December.

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