New study on the Europe’s fire regime in the context of Global warming

The new scientific paper “Global warming is shifting the relationships between fire weather and realized fire-induced CO2 emissions in Europe” report a historic change in the European fire regime driven by climate change, the more intense in the Mediterranean area. The work, published on the journal Scientific Reports is directed by Jofre Carnicer from the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF). Access the in-depth article on the CREAF wesbite.

Abstract

Fire activity has significantly changed in Europe over the last decades (1980–2020s), with the emergence of summers attaining unprecedented fire prone weather conditions. Here we report a significant shift in the non-stationary relationship linking fire weather conditions and fire intensity measured in terms of CO₂ emissions released during biomass burning across a latitudinal gradient of European IPCC regions. The reported trends indicate that global warming is possibly inducing an incipient change on regional fire dynamics towards increased fire impacts in Europe, suggesting that emerging risks posed by exceptional fire-weather danger conditions may progressively exceed current wildfire suppression capabilities in the next decades and impact forest carbon sinks.

Reference article:

Carnicer, J., Alegria, A., Giannakopoulos, C. et al. Global warming is shifting the relationships between fire weather and realized fire-induced CO₂ emissions in Europe. Sci Rep 12, 10365 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14480-8