| AFFILIATIONS | - University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Predictia Intelligent data solution, Santander, Spain
- University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
- National14 Research Council, Pisa, Italy
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| ABSTRACT | We present an assessment of future burned areas (BA) under different climate scenarios (1.5, 2 and 3°C warming) over the euro-Mediterranean area. We first built regional-scale regressions between summer BA and the Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (following and extending the study of Turco et al. 2017) and then we projected these relationships for different climate scenarios with and without taking into potential non-stationarities in the fire-climate relationships to a changing climate. BA projections are associated with large uncertainties, especially those related to climate drivers (here estimated using an ensemble of regional climate models). Despite these uncertainties, we find a robust increase in BA due to climate change and our results demonstrate that greater benefits would be achieved if warming is constrained well below 2°C, as expressed in the Paris Agreement (Turco et al. 2018).
Turco, M., von Hardenberg, J., AghaKouchak, A., Llasat, M. C., Provenzale, A., & Trigo, R. M. (2017). On the key role of droughts in the dynamics of summer fires in Mediterranean Europe. Scientific reports, 7(1), 81. DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-00116-9
Turco, M., Rosa Cánovas, J. J., Bedia J., Jerez, S., Montávez, J. P., Llasat, M. C., Provenzale, A. Impact of climate change on summer fires in Mediterranean Europe at 1.5, 2 and 3°C warming. Nature Communications, in press. |