The effect of climate change on indicators of fire danger in the UK
The effect of climate change on indicators of fire danger in the UK
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DOI：
10.1088/1748-9326/abd9f2
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发表时间：
2021-04-01
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
Gazzard, R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Arnell, N. W.;Freeman, A.;Gazzard, R.
英国很容易受到野火的影响，而且由于气候变化，这种脆弱性可能会增加。虽然与许多其他国家相比，风险很小，但最近的火灾提高了人们的意识，并突出了环境破坏、财产损失和关键基础设施损失的可能性。英国的大多数野火都是人为疏忽或故意造成的，但环境条件取决于之前和当前的天气。本文提出了气候变化对英国野火危险影响的预测，使用了一个版本的火险模型，UKCP18气候预测代表低排放和高排放，以及几个火险指标。整个英国的火灾危险将增加，但变化的程度和可变性因指标而异。现在和未来的绝对危险在南部和东部是最大的（到本世纪80年代，平均危险日数增加了3-4倍），但危险从较低的基数向北增加。基于绝对阈值的指标在英国各地的变化变化取决于这些阈值现在被超过的频率，而基于百分位数的指标的（较小的）变异性反映了预估气候变化的变异性。危险增加的一半是由于温度升高，其余大部分是由于预计相对湿度的降低。变化幅度的不确定性是由于温度、相对湿度和降雨变化的不确定性，而且UKCP18两个气候模式组合之间存在很大差异。将排放减少到与实现国际气候政策目标相一致的水平，可显著减少（但不能消除）火灾危险的增加。结果表明，在应急规划和空间规划中，以及在制定可能引发火灾的活动准则时，都需要更加重视野火危险。他们建议需要开发一个更适合英国条件的火灾危险系统，并将火灾危险建模与着火源预测相结合，以更好地估计野火风险的变化。
The UK is vulnerable to wildfire, and vulnerability is likely to increase due to climate change. Whilst the risk is small compared with many other countries, recent fires have raised awareness and highlighted the potential for environmental damage and loss of property and key infrastructure. Most UK wildfires are a result of inadvertent or deliberate human action, but the environmental conditions depend on antecedent and current weather. This paper presents projections of the effects of climate change on UK wildfire danger, using a version of an operational fire danger model, UKCP18 climate projections representing low and high emissions, and several indicators of fire danger. Fire danger will increase across the whole of the UK, but the extent and variability in change varies with indicator. The absolute danger now and into the future is greatest in the south and east (the average number of danger days increases 3-4 times by the 2080s), but danger increases further north from a lower base. The variation in change across the UK for indicators based on absolute thresholds is determined by how often those thresholds are exceeded now, whilst the (lesser) variability in percentile-based indicators reflects variability in the projected change in climate. Half of the increase in danger is due to increased temperature, and most of the rest is due to projected reductions in relative humidity. Uncertainty in the magnitude of the change is due to uncertainty in changes in temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall, and there is a large difference between two of the UKCP18 climate model ensembles. Reducing emissions to levels consistent with achieving international climate policy targets significantly reduces, but does not eliminate, the increase in fire danger. The results imply that greater attention needs to be given to wildfire danger in both emergency and spatial planning, and in the development of guidelines for activities that may trigger fires. They suggest the need for the development of a fire danger system more tailored to UK conditions, and the combination of fire danger modelling with projections of sources of ignition to better estimate the change in wildfire risk.