Journal article
ENSO controls interannual fire activity in southeast Australia
M Mariani, MS Fletcher, A Holz, P Nyman
Geophysical Research Letters | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2016
DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070572
Abstract
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main mode controlling the variability in the ocean-atmosphere system in the South Pacific. While the ENSO influence on rainfall regimes in the South Pacific is well documented, its role in driving spatiotemporal trends in fire activity in this region has not been rigorously investigated. This is particularly the case for the highly flammable and densely populated southeast Australian sector, where ENSO is a major control over climatic variability. Here we conduct the first region-wide analysis of how ENSO controls fire activity in southeast Australia. We identify a significant relationship between ENSO and both fire frequency and area burnt. Critica..
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Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
Research was supported by ARC grants DI110100019 and IN140100050. Andres Holz was in part supported by the Australian Research Council (grant DP110101950) and the U.S. National Science Foundation Awards (grant 0966472). We thank the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, the ACT Parks and Wildfire, and TasList (Government of Tasmania) for providing the fire occurrence data. We also thank Karl Braganza and Alex Evans from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for providing the rainfall data from all the stations across southeast Australia. Data elaborated with these analyses are available upon request to M.M. (mmariani@student.unimelb.edu.au).