Increasing synchronicity of global extreme fire weather

Yin, Cong, Abatzoglou, John T., Jones, Matthew W., Cullen, Alison C., Sadegh, Mojtaba, Wang, Juanle and Liu, Yangxiaoyue (2026) Increasing synchronicity of global extreme fire weather. Science Advances, 12 (8). pp. 1-10. ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Concurrent extreme fire weather creates favorable conditions for widespread large fires, which can complicate the coordination of fire suppression resources and degrade regional air quality. Here, we examine the patterns and trends of intra- and interregional synchronous fire weather (SFW) and explore their links to climate variability and air quality impacts. We find climatologically elevated intraregional SFW in boreal regions, as well as interregional synchronicity among northern temperate and boreal regions. Significant increases in SFW occurred during 1979 to 2024, with more than a twofold increase observed in most regions. We estimate that over half of the observed increase is attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Internal modes of climate variability strongly influence SFW in several regions, including Equatorial Asia, which experiences 43 additional intraregional SFW days during El Niño years. Furthermore, SFW is strongly correlated with regional fire-sourced PM 2.5 in multiple regions globally. These findings highlight the growing challenges posed by SFW for firefighting coordination and human health.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data, code, and materials availability: All data used in this study are freely accessible: (i) Global 0.25° daily observed and counterfactual FWi from 1979 to 2024, along with the code, are shared on dryad: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cfxpnvxkp; (ii) monthly gridded burned area (MOdiS Mcd64A1.061): https://doi.org/10.5067/MOdiS/Mcd64A1.061;(iii) global average temperature anomaly: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate- at-a-glance/global/time- series; (iv) monthly gridded SSt (eRSSt v5): https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html; (v) daily gridded all-source PM2.5 concentrations:https://doi.org/10.24381/d58bbf47; (vi) monthly gridded fire-sourced PM2.5: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.iO/dn7YA; (vii) Gridded population count (GPW v4.11): https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/cieSin_GPWv411_GPW_Population_count; (viii)GldAS vegetation type classification: https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/gldas/vegetation-class- mask;(ix) and world income level classification: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world- bank-country- and- lending-groups. the study involved no new materials preparation.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scia...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2026 14:30
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2026 14:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102735
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.adx8813

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