Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017
Abstract
California has been seeing more wildfires in recent years, resulting in huge economic losses and threatening human health. Clarifying the meteorological environments of wildfires is foundational to improving the understanding and prediction of wildfires and their impacts. Here, 1535 California wildfires during 1984-2017 are systematically investigated. Based on two key meteorological factors - temperature and moisture anomalies - all wildfires are classified into four groups: hot-dry, hot-wet, cold-dry, cold-wet. Most (~60%) wildfires occurred on hot-dry days. Compositing the large-scale environments of the four groups shows that persistent high pressure and strong northeasterly wind descending from inland favor hot-dry conditions for wildfires. This analysis also reveals an important role of anomalies in southerly onshore flow that supports stronger convection, accompanied by more lightning flashes that provide a triggering mechanism for wildfires under hot-wet conditions. Self-organizing map analysis lends confidence in the large-scale meteorological pattern for dominating hot-dry wildfires in California. Besides wildfire occurrence, wildfire size is also influenced by meteorological anomalies through their magnitudes. Among them, moisture anomaly explains the largest fraction (~69%) of variability in wildfire sizes. Large-scale meteorological anomalies are found to play an important role in the devastating 2018 wildfire season in California. During 1984-2017, wildfire burned areamore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1778787
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-151787
Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 126; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES
Citation Formats
Dong, Lu, Leung, Lai-Yung, Qian, Yun, Zou, Yufei, Song, Fengfei, and Chen, Xiaodong. Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1029/2020JD033180.
Dong, Lu, Leung, Lai-Yung, Qian, Yun, Zou, Yufei, Song, Fengfei, & Chen, Xiaodong. Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD033180
Dong, Lu, Leung, Lai-Yung, Qian, Yun, Zou, Yufei, Song, Fengfei, and Chen, Xiaodong. Mon .
"Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD033180. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1778787.
@article{osti_1778787,
title = {Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017},
author = {Dong, Lu and Leung, Lai-Yung and Qian, Yun and Zou, Yufei and Song, Fengfei and Chen, Xiaodong},
abstractNote = {California has been seeing more wildfires in recent years, resulting in huge economic losses and threatening human health. Clarifying the meteorological environments of wildfires is foundational to improving the understanding and prediction of wildfires and their impacts. Here, 1535 California wildfires during 1984-2017 are systematically investigated. Based on two key meteorological factors - temperature and moisture anomalies - all wildfires are classified into four groups: hot-dry, hot-wet, cold-dry, cold-wet. Most (~60%) wildfires occurred on hot-dry days. Compositing the large-scale environments of the four groups shows that persistent high pressure and strong northeasterly wind descending from inland favor hot-dry conditions for wildfires. This analysis also reveals an important role of anomalies in southerly onshore flow that supports stronger convection, accompanied by more lightning flashes that provide a triggering mechanism for wildfires under hot-wet conditions. Self-organizing map analysis lends confidence in the large-scale meteorological pattern for dominating hot-dry wildfires in California. Besides wildfire occurrence, wildfire size is also influenced by meteorological anomalies through their magnitudes. Among them, moisture anomaly explains the largest fraction (~69%) of variability in wildfire sizes. Large-scale meteorological anomalies are found to play an important role in the devastating 2018 wildfire season in California. During 1984-2017, wildfire burned area has significantly increased by ~3.6% per year, indicating a doubling of burned area in 2017 relative to 1984, with the trend dominated by hot-dry wildfires in summer. Drying and warming in conjunction with strengthening of the high pressure in summer support more frequent and larger wildfires in California.},
doi = {10.1029/2020JD033180},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
number = 5,
volume = 126,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2021},
month = {Mon Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2021}
}
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