Future climate change impact on wildfire danger over the Mediterranean: the case of Greece
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Rovithakis, Anastasios
Grillakis, Manolis G
Seiradakis, Konstantinos D
Giannakopoulos, Christos
Karali, Anna
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recent studies have shown that temperature and precipitation in the Mediterranean are expected to change, contributing to longer and more intense summer droughts that even extend out of season. In connection to this, the frequency of forest fire occurrence and intensity will likely increase. In the present study, the changes in future fire danger conditions are assessed for the different regions of Greece using the Canadian fire weather index (FWI). Gridded future climate output as estimated from three regional climate models from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment are utilized. We use three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) consisting of an optimistic emissions scenario where emissions peak and decline beyond 2020 (RCP2.6), a middle-of-the-road scenario (RCP4.5) and a pessimistic scenario, in terms of mitigation where emissions continue to rise throughout the century (RCP8.5). Based on established critical fire FWI threshold values for Greece, the future change in days with critical fire danger were calculated for different areas of Greece domains. The results show that fire danger is expected to progressively increase in the future especially in the high-end climate change scenario with southern and eastern regions of Greece expected to have up to 40 additional days of high fire danger relative to the late 20th century, on average. Crete, the Aegean Islands, the Attica region, as well as parts of Peloponnese are predicted to experience a stronger increase in fire danger.
Date Issued
2022-04-01
Date Acceptance
2022-03-21
Citation
Environmental Research Letters, 2022, 17 (4)
ISSN
1748-9326
Publisher
Institute of Physics (IoP)
Journal / Book Title
Environmental Research Letters
Volume
17
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
License URL
Sponsor
Leverhulme Trust
The Leverhulme Trust
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000777020800001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
RC-2018-023
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
fire danger
fire weather index
EURO-CORDEX
wildfires
FIRE WEATHER INDEX
PROJECTIONS
RISK
GENERATION
RESOLUTION
SCENARIO
INCREASE
SYSTEM
CANADA
SEASON
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 045022