Abstract
The problem of forest fires is very important for Russia. In this paper we consider this problem in the connection with the projection of significant climate change. An approach to determine the magnitude of change in wildfire risk in Russia under the influence of climate warming is discussed. Observations for the European part of Russia and for Siberia have been used in this analysis. A statistical correlation between drought indices calculated by use of monthly sums of temperature and precipitation and the frequency of fire danger was obtained for the forest zone of Russia. The change in fire danger potential was evaluated using temperature and precipitation monthly means at the nodes of a regular spatial grid. Climate change scenarios were obtained from Global Climate Models (GCM) ensemble projections. The maximum increases (about 12–30%) of the number of days with fire danger conditions during the twenty-first century fire season were obtained for the southern forest zone boundary in both the European region of Russia and in Siberia. In the Baikal and Primoriye Regions, fire danger distributions in the twenty-first century are not projected to change significantly.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Boville BA, Kiehl JT, Rasch PJ, Bryan FO (2001) Improvements to the NCAR CSM-1 for transient climate simulations. J Climate 14:164–179
Brandt S (2003) Data Analysis. Springer, p 686
Brown TJ, Hall BL (2002) Assessing long-term fire danger variability and change from climate model output. In Proceedings AMS 4th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology, November 2001, pp. 217–219
Carcaillet C, Bergeron Y, Richard PJH, Frechette B, Gauthier S, Prairie YTA (2001) Change of fire frequency in eastern Canadian boreal forest during the Holocene: does vegetation composition or climate trigger the fire regime?’ J Ecol 89:930–948
Chambers S, and Chapin FS (2003) Fire effects on surface–atmosphere exchange in Alaskan black spruce ecosystems: implementations for feedbacks to regional climate. J Geophys Res 108, NO D1 8153
Conard SG, Sukhinin AI, Stochs BJ, Cahoon DR, Davidenko EP, Ivanova Gi (2002) Determining effects of area burned and fire severity on carbon cycling and emission in Siberia. Clim Change 55:197–211
CSIRO (2001) Warming asymmetry in climate change experiments. Geophys Res Lett 28:195–198
Delworth Tl, Stouffer RJ, Dixon KW, Spelman MJ, Knuttson TR, Broccoly AJ, Kustiner PJ, Weatherald RT (2002) Review of simulation of climate variability and change by the GFDL R30 coupled climate model. Clim Dyn 19(7):556–574
Dovgalyuk YA, Orenburgskaya EV, Uglanova TL (1991) Convective clouds characteristics over forest fire danger potential regions in the ASIA part of Russian Federation and several arid regions in European part. Gidrometeoizdat pp 88, (in Russian)
Egorov KL, Molkentin EK, Nadyozhina ED, Shklyarevich OB (2003) Model evaluations of temperature conditions in the forest region. Meteorol Gidrol 10:41–53
Flato GM, Boer WG (2001) Warming asymmetry in climate change experiments. Geophys Res Lett 28:195–198
Fosberg MA, Stocks BJ, Lynham TJ (1996) Risk analysis in strategic planning: fire and climate change in the boreal forest. In: Goldammer JG, Furyaev VV (eds) Fire in Ecosystems of Boreal Eurasia. Kluwer, Netherlands, pp 495–504
Gordon C, Cooper C, Senior CA, Banks H, Gregory GM, Johns TC, Mitchell JFB, Wood RA (2000) The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustment. Clim Dyn 16:147–168
Gordon HB, O’Farrell SP (1997) Transient climate change in the CSIRO coupled model with dynamic sea ice. Mon Weather Rev 125:875–907
Groisman PYA, Knight RW, Haim RR, Razuvaev VN, Sherstyukov BG, Speranskaya NA (2003) Contemporary climate changes in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere: cause an increasing potential forest fire danger. in Proceedings of 5th AMS Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology Joint with 2nd International Wild land Ecology and Fire Management Congress, November 2003, Ontario, Florida
Hinzman LD, Fukuda M, Sandberg DV, Chapin FS, Dash D (2003) An experimental approach to predicting the climate feedbacks from the changing boreal fire regime. J Geophys Res 108:NOD1, 8148
IPCC (2000) The SRES Scenarios. Available at http://ipcc-ddc.cru.uea.ac.uk
IPCC (2001) Climate Change 2001:the Scientific Basis. In: Houghton JT, Ding Y, Griggs DJ, Noguer M, Van Der Linden PJ, **aosu D (eds) Cambridge University Press, UK
Kasischke ES, Hyer EJ, French NHF, Suchinin AI, Hewson JH, Stocks BJ (2004) Carbon emissions from boreal forest fires – 1996 to 2002. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 19:GB1012, doi 10.1029/2004, GB002300
Kats AL, Gusev VL, Shabunina TA (1975) Methodical Instruction on projection of forest fire danger on the base of weather conditions. Gidrometeoizdat, pp 16 (in Russian)
Kattsov VM, Vavulin SV, Govorkova VA, Pavlova TV (2003) Scenarios of Arctic climate. Meteorol Gidrol 10:5–19 (in Russian)
Keetch JJ and Byram GA (1968) Drought index for forest fire control.USDA, Research paper SE-38, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. http://www:/fire.uni-freiburg.de/iffn/country/id/id_29.htm
Li MD, Flannigan C, Corns LGW (2000) Influence of potential climate change on forest landscape dynamics of west-central Alberta. Can J For Res 30:1905–1912
Malevsky-Malevich SP, Molkentin EK, Nadyozhina ED, Shklyarevich OB (2001) Numerical simulation of permafrost parameters distribution in Russia. Cold Reg Sci Technol 32:1–11
Malevsky-Malevich SP, Molkentin EK, Nadyozhina ED, Pavlova TV, Shklyarevich OB (2003) Possible change of active layer depths in the permafrost areas of Russia. Meteorol Gidrol 12:80–88 (in Russian)
Mescherskaya AV, Blaszevich VP (1985) Long term series of mean regional meteorological complexes for main agricultural zone of USSR. Handbook p 324
Mescherskaya AV, Blaszevich VG (1997) The drought and excessive moisture indices in the historical perspective in the principal grain producing regions of the former Soviet Union. J Climate 10:2670–2687
Mitropolsky AK (1971) The technique of statistical calculations, M., Nauka, p 576
Molkentin EK, Nadyozhina ED, Shklyarevich OB (2003) Model evaluations of vegetation influence on permafrost degradation under the climate warming. Meteorol Gidrol 3:87–95 (in Russian)
Nesterov VG (1949) Forest fires and Methods of fire risk determination, M., Goslesbumizdat, pp 237 (in Russian)
Panofsky HA, Brier GW (1958) Some Applications of Statistics to Meteorology. Penn State University Press, Pennsylvania. p 225
Roeckner E, Oberhuber JM, Bacher A et al (1996) ENSO variability and atmospheric response in a global coupled atmosphere–ocean GCM. Clim Dyn 12:737–754
Selyaninov GL (1928) About the agricultural evaluation of the climate. Trudy GGO. 20:177–185 (in Russian)
Sherstyukov BG (2003) Meteorological effects on forest fire danger at the second part of 20th century and extreme conditions in Moscow region in 2002. Trudy VNIGMI MTSD, 79–88 (in Russian)
Sofronov MA (1998) Drought indices for forest fire danger evaluation. in ‘Forests and Forest Economy of West Siberia’. Tyumen University Press 6:55–62 (in Russian)
Stocks BJ, Fosberg MA, Lynham TJ, Mearns L, Wotton BM, Yang Q, ** J-Z, Lawrence K, Hartley GR, Mason JA, McKenney DW (1998) Climate change and forest fire potential in Russian and Canadian boreal forests. Clim Change 38(1):1–13
Stocks BJ (2004) Forest fires in the boreal zone: climate change and carbon implications. Int For Fire News 31:122–131
Vonskiy SM (1975) The determination of wildfire danger in the forest. Methodical Issue. Izd. LENNIICHL p 40 (in Russian)
Zacharov AI (1998) Forest fires in Hanty-Mansiysk autonomous district’, in ‘Forests and Forest Economy of West Siberia’. Tyumen University Press. 6:99–107 (in Russian)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Malevsky-Malevich, S.P., Molkentin, E.K., Nadyozhina, E.D. et al. An assessment of potential change in wildfire activity in the Russian boreal forest zone induced by climate warming during the twenty-first century. Climatic Change 86, 463–474 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9295-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9295-7