Abstract
Simulations of impacts of a double-CO2 climate with the Changed Climate Fire Modeling System in Northern California consistently projected increases in area burned and in the frequency of escaped fires compared with simulations of the present climate. However, the magnitude of those increases was strongly influenced by vegetation type, choice of atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) scenario, and choice of climatic forcing variables. The greatest projected increase in fire severity occurred in grasslands, using the Princeton Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory GCM, with wind speed, temperature, humidity and precipitation as driving variables.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Albini, F. A.: 1976, Estimating Wildfire Behavior and Effects, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report INT-30, 92 pp.
Andrews, P. L. and Chase, C. H.: 1989, BEHAVE: Fire Behavior Prediction and Fuel Modeling System - Burn Subsystem, Part 2, USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station General Technical Report INT-260.
Beer, T., Gill, A. M., and Moore, P. H. R.: 1988, ‘Australian Bushfire Danger under Changing Climate Regimes’, in Greenhouse '87, CSIRO, Victoria, Australia.
Bradshaw, L. S., Deeming, J. E., Burgan, R. E., and Cohen. J. D.: 1983. The 1978 National Fire Danger Rating System: Technical Documentation, USDA Forest Service Intermountain Experiment Station General Technical Report INT-169.
Clark, J. S.: 1988, ‘Effect of Climate Change on Fire Regimes in Northwestern Minnesota’. Nature 334, 233–235.
Clark, J. S.: 1990, ‘Fire and Climate Change During the Last 750 Years in Northwestern Minnesota’, Ecological Monographs 60 (2), 135–159.
Dimitrakopoulos, A.: 1985, An Evaluation of the National Fire Management Analysis System's Initial Attack Analysis Processor. M.S. thesis. Colorado State University. Fort Collins, CO.
Fried, J. S. and Gilless, J. K.: 1988, The California Fire Economics Simulator Initial Attack Module (CFES-IAM): MS-DOS Version 1.11 User's Guide, Bulletin 1925, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley, California. 84 p.
Fried, J. S., Gilless, J. K., and Martin. R. E.: 1987, CFES - The California Fire Economics Simulator: A Computerized System for Wildland Fire Protection Planning, in Proceedings, Symposium on Wildland Fire 2000, 1987 April 27–30; South Lake Tahoe. CA, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-101, pp. 212–217.
Fried, J. S. and Torn, M. S.: 1990, ‘Analyzing Localized Climate Impacts with the Changed Climate Fire Modeling System’, Natural Resource Modeling 4 (2), 229–253.
Furman, R. W. and Brink, G. E.: 1975. The National Fire Weather Data Library: What It Is and How to Use It, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-19.
Hansen, J., Fung, I., Lacis, A., Lebedeff, S., Rind, D., Ruedy, R., Russell, G., and Stone, P.: 1988, ‘Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies Three-Dimensional Model’, J. of Geoph. Res. 93 (D8), 9341–9364.
Hansen, J., Russell, G., Rind, D., Stone, P., Lacis, A., Lebedeff, S., Ruedy, R., and Travis, L.: 1983, ‘Efficient Three-Dimensional Global Models for Climate Studies: Models I and II’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 111 (4), 609–661.
Harte, J., Torn, M. S., and Jensen, D. B.: 1992, ‘The Nature and Consequences of Indirect Linkages between Climate Change and Biological Diversity’, in Peters, R. and Lovejoy, T. (eds.), Global Warm and Biological Diversity, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Manabe, S. and Wetherald, R.: 1980, ‘On the Distribution of Climate Change Resulting from an Increase in CO2 Content of the Atmosphere’, J. Atmos. Sci. 37, 99–118.
Mitchell, W. and Spero, J.: 1991, The Fire Protection Planning System. Report on Operational Testing in California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Region I, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Sacramento, CA, 20 pp.
Rothermal, R. C.: 1983, How to Predict the Spread and Intensity of Forest and Range Fires, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report INT-43, 161 pp.
Simard, A. J. and Main, W. A.: 1987, ‘Global Climate Change: The Potential for Changes in Wildland Fire Activity in the Southeast’, in Meo. M. (ed.), Proceedings, Symposium on Climate Change in the Southern United States: Future Impacts and Present Policy Issues, 1987 May 28–29, New Orleans, LA.
Sneeuwjagt, R. J. and Frandsen, W. H.: 1977, ‘Behavior of Experimental Grass Fires vs. Predictions Based on Rothermal's Fire Model’, Canad. J. Forest Res. 7, 357–367.
Strauss, D., Bednar, L., and Mees, R.: 1989, ‘Do One Percent of Forest Fires Cause Ninety-Nine Percent of the Damage?’, Forest Science 35 (2), 319–328.
Westman, W. E. and Malanson, G. P.: 1992, ‘Effects of Climate Change on Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems in California and Baja California’, in Peters, R. L. and Lovejoy, T. (eds.), Global Warming and Biological Diversity, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Wilson, C. S. and Mitchell, J. F. B.: 1987, ‘A Doubled CO2 Climate Sensitivity Experiment with a Global Climate Model Including a Simple Ocean’, J. Geophys. Res. 92 (D11), 13315–13343.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Torn, M.S., Fried, J.S. Predicting the impacts of global warming on wildland fire. Climatic Change 21, 257–274 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00139726
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00139726