Climate teleconnections modulate global burned area

Adrián Cardil; Marcos Rodrigues; Mario Tapia; Renaud Barbero; Joaquin Ramírez; Cathelijne R Stoof; Carlos Alberto Silva; Midhun Mohan; Sergio de-Miguel

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36052-8

Climate teleconnections modulate global burned area

Nat Commun. 2023 Jan 26;14(1):427. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36052-8.

Authors

Adrián Cardil^{1

2

3}, Marcos Rodrigues^{4

5}, Mario Tapia⁶, Renaud Barbero⁷, Joaquin Ramírez⁶, Cathelijne R Stoof⁸, Carlos Alberto Silva⁹, Midhun Mohan¹⁰, Sergio de-Miguel^{11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Joint Research Unit CTFC-AGROTECNIO-CERCA, Solsona, Spain. acardil@tecnosylva.com.
² Technosylva Inc, La Jolla, CA, USA. acardil@tecnosylva.com.
³ Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain. acardil@tecnosylva.com.
⁴ Department of Geography and Land Management, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.
⁵ GEOFOREST Research Group, University Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences of Aragon (IUCA), Zaragoza, Spain.
⁶ Technosylva Inc, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁷ INRAE, RECOVER, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, 13182, France.
⁸ Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, PO box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁹ Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing Laboratory (Silva Lab), School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, PO Box 110410, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Geography, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94709, USA.
¹¹ Joint Research Unit CTFC-AGROTECNIO-CERCA, Solsona, Spain. sergio.demiguel@udl.cat.
¹² Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain. sergio.demiguel@udl.cat.

Abstract

Climate teleconnections (CT) remotely influence weather conditions in many regions on Earth, entailing changes in primary drivers of fire activity such as vegetation biomass accumulation and moisture. We reveal significant relationships between the main global CTs and burned area that vary across and within continents and biomes according to both synchronous and lagged signals, and marked regional patterns. Overall, CTs modulate 52.9% of global burned area, the Tropical North Atlantic mode being the most relevant CT. Here, we summarized the CT-fire relationships into a set of six global CT domains that are discussed by continent, considering the underlying mechanisms relating weather patterns and vegetation types with burned area across the different world's biomes. Our findings highlight the regional CT-fire relationships worldwide, aiming to further support fire management and policy-making.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biomass
Climate Change
Climate*
Ecosystem
Fires*
Weather