DATE2019-01-08 12:44:23
IDABSTRACT2014/308
CONTACTcharles.hernandez@lmd.polytechnique.fr
PRESENTATIONORAL
INVITED0
IDSESSION3
TITLETOTAL FIRE SIZE AND FIRE RADIATIVE POWER IN THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN AREA : DIFFERENT BEHAVIORS WITH RESPECT TO SYNOPTIC METEOROLOGY.
AUTHORSCharles Hernandez (1)|Philippe Drobinski (1)|Solène Turquety (2)
AFFILIATIONS
  1. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace/Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (IPSL/LMD), UMR8539, CNRS & Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
  2. Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 06, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD), Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France
ABSTRACTThe majority of the destruction caused by wildfires is made by large, infrequent fires which behavior is hard to control for the firefighters. In this study, our goal is to better understand their characteristics and to what synoptic weather they are related. We use meteorology derived from the ERA-Interim Reanalysis and satellite images from MODIS to assess the burnt area (BA) and fire radiative power (FRP) of the wildfires. We first consider the Mediterranean Basin (MED). In this region the 95th quantile of FRP is higher for high synoptic surface winds and temperature anomalies, which is well explained by the physics governing radiative emissions. The behavior of the BA with respect to the weather at the beginning of each fire is more complex. In MED we see two modes of maximum 95th quantile of fire size : one with high surface temperature anomaly and moderately high synoptic winds and a second one with low winds. We then consider the southern Russia and eastern Ukraine area (EAST), which is characterized by its abundance of farmlands. Wildfires occurring in EAST only display the high winds maximum. We will explain this difference in behavior with respect to the physics of fire propagation.
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