Scientists Develop Method for Seasonal Prediction of Wildfires in the US West

[rebewranger]

Scientists Develop Method for Seasonal Prediction of Wildfires in the US West
2 hours ago Charles Rotter 14 Comments
HT/Willis

A new paper was published in Environmental Research Letters using pre-fire season climate conditions.

 
Winter and spring climate explains a large portion of interannual variability and trend in western U.S. summer fire burned area
Ronnie Abolafia-Rosenzweig2,1, Cenlin He1 and Fei Chen1

Published 29 April 2022 • © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 17, Number 5

Citation Ronnie Abolafia-Rosenzweig et al 2022 Environ. Res. Lett. 17 054030
 

Abstract
This study predicts summer (June–September) fire burned area across the western United States (U.S.) from 1984 to 2020 using ensembles of statistical models trained with pre-fire season climate conditions. Winter and spring climate conditions alone explain up to 53% of the interannual variability and 58% of the increasing trend of observed summer burned area, which suggests that climate conditions in antecedent seasons have been an important driver to broad-scale changes in summer fire activity in the western U.S. over the recent four decades. Relationships between antecedent climate conditions with summer burned area are found to be strongest over non-forested and middle-to-high elevation areas (1100–3300 m). Statistical models that predict summer burned area using both antecedent and fireseason climate conditions have improved performance, explaining 69% of the interannual variability and 83% of the increasing trend of observed burned area. Among the antecedent climate predictors, vapor pressure deficit averaged over winter and spring plays the most critical role in predicting summer fire burned area. Spring snow drought area is found to be an important antecedent predictor for summer burned area over snow-reliant regions in the nonlinear statistical modeling framework used in this analysis. Namely, spring snow drought memory is realized through dry anomalies in land (soil and fuel) and atmospheric moisture during summer, which favours fire activity. This study highlights the important role of snow drought in subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasts of summer burned area over snow-reliant areas.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/25/scientists-develop-method-for-seasonal-prediction-of-wildfires-in-the-us-west/

[rebewranger]

So this thing can predict arsonists?  Sparks from train brakes?  Lightning strikes?  Downed power lines?  Careless campers?  Wow!  What a discoverey!

[sneakypete]

I am going to go out on a limb (no pun intended) here,and predict "during a drought"?

[rebewranger]

But under democrat "science" I'm sure you can change a drought to a flood.

[sneakypete]

So this thing can predict arsonists?  Sparks from train brakes?  Lightning strikes?  Downed power lines?  Careless campers?  Wow!  What a discoverey!

@rangerrebew

We had a sudden rash of brush,marsh,and dumpster fires around here a few years back. One day  I was driving out the dirt road I live on,and when I cleared a turn,spotted a gun leaning out his car door with a wadded up burning newspaper. He was driving a big car with a V-8 and I was driving a 6 cyl Duster,so I just stopped and when he drove away,I followed him home.

Had a few words with him mentioning stuff like "gonna shoot you in both kneecaps and both elbows,and then I am going to nail your doors and windows shut and set your house on fire with you in it if my house burns down."

Seemed to have made an impression on this young man of around 18 or 19,because he was gone within a week. I later heard he had gotten in "some sort of trouble with the law in New Jersey,where he lived with his parents,and had moved to NC to live with his grandparents and to avoid going to jail."

I have no idea where he went or what happened to him,but the fires stopped immediately.