ESTIMATING FIRE DANGER OVER ITALY IN THE NEXT DECADES
Extreme meteorological events pose serious risks for human activities and infrastructures, above all in this last decade in which severe climatic events are increasing in frequency and intensity with significant impacts on human and natural systems. In particular, wildfires represent severe threats for environmental and economic sectors, as they can degrade air quality, damage forests, exacerbate natural hazards with also serious implications for the security of electric system and its governance. In order to identify the most likely vulnerable regions in the next decades, the effects of climate changes on fire danger over Italy have been investigated by comparing the current climate (1971-2000) with medium-term future scenarios (2021-2050) inferred from several high-resolution regional climate simulations provided by two EU-funded Projects: ENSEMBLES models (with an horizontal resolution of 25 km under the SRES A1B emission scenario) and Med-CORDEX models (with 12 km spatial resolution under the two radiative forcing configurations RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). The wildfire danger has been characterized by computing the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) using a single Med-CORDEX model (ICTP-RegCM4). Moreover, to achieve more robust results, the likely occurrence of meteorological conditions favourable to trigger wildfires has been analysed on the basis of a sub-set of ENSEMBLES models. The results inferred from Med-CORDEX model and the multi-model ensemble projections highlight an alarming model agreement on increasing fire probabilities: in line with previous experiments, fire danger is expected to increase of at least 20% by 2050 in most of Italy in summer, projected drier and warmer for the next decades.
ESTIMATING FIRE DANGER OVER ITALY IN THE NEXT DECADES
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DOI: 10.37572/EdArt_31072418512
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Palavras-chave: Regional Climate Models; Fire Danger; Climate Projections; Fire Weather Index.
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Keywords: Regional Climate Models; Fire Danger; Climate Projections; Fire Weather Index.
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Abstract:
Extreme meteorological events pose serious risks for human activities and infrastructures, above all in this last decade in which severe climatic events are increasing in frequency and intensity with significant impacts on human and natural systems. In particular, wildfires represent severe threats for environmental and economic sectors, as they can degrade air quality, damage forests, exacerbate natural hazards with also serious implications for the security of electric system and its governance. In order to identify the most likely vulnerable regions in the next decades, the effects of climate changes on fire danger over Italy have been investigated by comparing the current climate (1971-2000) with medium-term future scenarios (2021-2050) inferred from several high-resolution regional climate simulations provided by two EU-funded Projects: ENSEMBLES models (with an horizontal resolution of 25 km under the SRES A1B emission scenario) and Med-CORDEX models (with 12 km spatial resolution under the two radiative forcing configurations RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). The wildfire danger has been characterized by computing the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) using a single Med-CORDEX model (ICTP-RegCM4). Moreover, to achieve more robust results, the likely occurrence of meteorological conditions favourable to trigger wildfires has been analysed on the basis of a sub-set of ENSEMBLES models. The results inferred from Med-CORDEX model and the multi-model ensemble projections highlight an alarming model agreement on increasing fire probabilities: in line with previous experiments, fire danger is expected to increase of at least 20% by 2050 in most of Italy in summer, projected drier and warmer for the next decades.
- Paola Faggian