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Title:

Heat waves in Portugal: Current regime, changes in future climate and impacts on extreme wildfires.

Authors:

Parente, J.1 joanaparente@utad.pt Pereira, M.G.1,2 gpereira@utad.pt Amraoui, M.1 malik@utad.pt Fischer, E.M.3 erich.fischer@env.ethz.ch

Source:

Science of the Total Environment. Aug2018, Vol. 631, p534-549. 16p.

Document Type:

Article

Subject Terms:

*HEAT waves (Meteorology) *WILDFIRES & the environment *CLIMATE change *METEOROLOGICAL databases *CLIMATOLOGY PORTUGAL -- Environmental conditions

Author-Supplied Keywords:

Climate change Climate variability Extreme wildfire Heat wave Portugal

Abstract:

Heat waves (HW) can have devastating social, economic and environmental impacts. Together with long-term drought, they are the main factors contributing to wildfires. Surprisingly, the quantitative and objective analysis leading to the identification and characterization of HW in current and future climate conditions as well as its influence on the occurrence of extreme wildfires (EW) has never been performed for Portugal and are the main objectives of this study. For this reason, we assess HW in recent past and future climate based on a consistent high resolution meteorological database and have compared their occurrence with long and reliable, precise and detailed information about Portuguese fire events. Results include the characterization of HW frequency, duration, seasonality and intensity for current and different future climate conditions and their relationship with EW occurrence. We detected 130 HW between 1981 and 2010, concentrated between May and October and highest values in July and August. The highest HW number and duration is found over the Northeast corner and the south of the country while highest amplitudes are typically located in central area. HW characteristics present high inter-annual variability but are clearly associated to the temporal and spatial distribution of EW: 97% of total number of EW were active during an HW, 90% of total EW days were also HW days; 82% of the EW had duration completely contained in the duration of an HW; and, 83% of EW occurred during and in the area affected by HW. Our results also show that HW should increase in number, duration and amplitude, more significantly for RCP 8.5, and for the 30-year periods near the end of the 21st century. Findings of this study will support the definition of climate change adaptation strategies for fire danger and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

 

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Author Affiliations:

1Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environment and Biological Sciences, CITAB, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal 2Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal 3Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

ISSN:

0048-9697

DOI:

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.044

Accession Number:

129294659

Database:

Academic Search Complete