Variability, trends, and drivers of regional fluctuations in Australian fire activity

Nick Earl; Ian Simmonds

Journal article

Variability, trends, and drivers of regional fluctuations in Australian fire activity

Nick Earl, Ian Simmonds

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.1002/2016JD026312

Abstract

Throughout the world fire regimes are determined by climate, vegetation, and anthropogenic factors, and they have great spatial and temporal variability. The availability of high-quality satellite data has revolutionized fire monitoring, allowing for a more consistent and comprehensive evaluation of temporal and spatial patterns. Here we utilize a satellite based “active fire” (AF) product to statistically analyze 2001-2015 variability and trends in Australian fire activity and link this to precipitation and large-scale atmospheric structures (namely, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)) known to have potential for predicting fire activity in different r..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Ian Simmonds Author Earth Sciences

Related Projects (1)

Tropical climate change, the Hadley and Walker Circulations, and Australian climate

Tropical climate systems, especially the overturning circulations and monsoons, have undergone change in recent decades and are expected to ..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

The authors thank Kevin Ward of NASA's Earth Observatory for helping with the initial data download (available at http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MOD14A1_M_FIRE) and Andrew King for useful discussions. Parts of this research were made possible by funding from the Australian Research Council grant DP140102855. We thank the Bureau of Meteorology, the Bureau of Rural Sciences, and CSIRO for providing the Australian Water Availability Project data.