Correlations between components of the water balance and burned area reveal new insights for predicting forest fire area in the southwest United States
A. Park Williams A I , Richard Seager A , Alison K. Macalady B , Max Berkelhammer C , Michael A. Crimmins D , Thomas W. Swetnam B , Anna T. Trugman E , Nikolaus Buenning F , David Noone C , Nate G. McDowell G , Natalia Hryniw H , Claudia I. Mora G and Thom Rahn G
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
B Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA.
C Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
D Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
E Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
F Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
G Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
H Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
I Corresponding author. Email: williams@ldeo.columbia.edu
International Journal of Wildland Fire 24(1) 14-26 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF14023
Submitted: 21 February 2014 Accepted: 28 August 2014 Published: 13 November 2014
Abstract
We related measurements of annual burned area in the southwest United States during 1984–2013 to records of climate variability. Within forests, annual burned area correlated at least as strongly with spring–summer vapour pressure deficit (VPD) as with 14 other drought-related metrics, including more complex metrics that explicitly represent fuel moisture. Particularly strong correlations with VPD arise partly because this term dictates the atmospheric moisture demand. Additionally, VPD responds to moisture supply, which is difficult to measure and model regionally due to complex micrometeorology, land cover and terrain. Thus, VPD appears to be a simple and holistic indicator of regional water balance. Coupled with the well-known positive influence of prior-year cold season precipitation on fuel availability and connectivity, VPD may be utilised for burned area forecasts and also to infer future trends, though these are subject to other complicating factors such as land cover change and management. Assuming an aggressive greenhouse gas emissions scenario, climate models predict mean spring–summer VPD will exceed the highest recorded values in the southwest in nearly 40% of years by the middle of this century. These results forewarn of continued increases in burned forest area in the southwest United States, and likely elsewhere, when fuels are not limiting.
Additional keywords: fire danger, tree mortality, warming.
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