PICTURE OF THE MONTH!
(posted October 8, 2009)
Effects of climate change on wildfire and air quality
We investigated the impact of climate change on wildfire activity and
carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States for
the 2000 to 2050 time period. We used observed wildfire activity and
meteorology over the period 1980-2004 to develop relationships between
weather and wildfire. We found that May-October mean temperature and
fuel moisture explain 24-57% of the variance in annual area
burned in the West.
Increasing temperatures simulated by the NASA/GISS GCM under
the IPCC A1B scenario drive a 78% increase in area burned in the
Pacific Northwest and a 175 % increase in the Rocky Mountains by
mid-century.

The plot above shows the change to surface level summer (June-August)
organic carbon aerosol concentrations over the western United States
by mid-century, simulated using GEOS-chem driven by meteorological
fields from NASA/GISS GCM. Simulated organic carbon aerosol
concentrations increase by an average of 40% over the western United
States by 2050. We separate the effects of changing climate from changing
wildfire and find that 75% of this increase is driven by larger fires
in a warmer climate. For more details see Spracklen et al. [2009].
For more information, please see Spracklen et al. 2009.
Please click here to see our previous pictures of the month!