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| Titel |
Sensitivity of fire weather index to different reanalysis products in the Iberian Peninsula |
| VerfasserIn |
J. Bedia, S. Herrera, J. M. Gutiérrez, G. Zavala, I. R. Urbieta, J. M. Moreno |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1561-8633
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ; 12, no. 3 ; Nr. 12, no. 3 (2012-03-23), S.699-708 |
| Datensatznummer |
250010613
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/nhess-12-699-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
Wildfires are a major concern on the Iberian Peninsula, and the establishment
of effective prevention and early warning systems are crucial to reduce
impacts and losses. Fire weather indices are daily indicators of fire danger
based upon meteorological information. However, their application in many
studies is conditioned to the availability of sufficiently large
climatological time series over extensive geographical areas and of
sufficient quality. Furthermore, wind and relative humidity, important for
the calculation of fire spread and fuel flammability parameters, are
relatively scarce data. For these reasons, different reanalysis products are
often used for the calculation of surrogate fire danger indices, although the
agreement with those derived from observations remains as an open question to
be addressed.
In this study, we analyze this problem focusing on the Canadian Fire Weather
Index (FWI) – and the associated Seasonal Severity Rating (SSR) – and
considering three different reanalysis products of varying resolutions on the
Iberian Peninsula: NCEP, ERA-40 and ERA-Interim. Besides the
inter-comparison of the resulting FWI/SSR values, we also study their
correspondence with observational data from 7 weather stations in Spain and
their sensitivity to the input parameters (precipitation, temperature,
relative humidity and wind velocity).
As a general result, ERA-Interim reproduces the observed FWI magnitudes with
better accuracy than NCEP, with lower/higher correlations in the coast/inland
locations. For instance, ERA-Interim summer correlations are above 0.5 in
inland locations – where higher FWI magnitudes are attained – whereas the
corresponding values for NCEP are below this threshold. Nevertheless,
departures from the observed distributions are generally found in all
reanalysis, with a general tendency to underestimation, more pronounced in
the case of NCEP. In spite of these limitations, ERA-Interim may still be
useful for the identification of extreme fire danger events. (e.g. those
above the 90th percentile value) and for the definition of danger
levels/classes (with level thresholds adapted to the observed/reanalysis
distributions). |
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