Change in Fire Season Start and End Date based on Climate Model Projection of ERC
Projected change in the beginning and end of fire season across the continental United States. Fire season is defined as the period between the first and last day of exceedance of the historical 80th percentile of the fire index Energy Release Component calculated with fuel model G (ERC-G) on a 25-km grid. The top row of maps shows times of fire season start, or first exceedance of the 80th percentile ERC-G, while the bottom row shows times of fire season end, or last exceedance of the 80th percentile ERC-G. Colors on the map represent the time of the year when start and end occur. Much of the western US sees the season start shifting from June to May and the season end shifting closer to November. This visualization is only applicable in the western US, because in the Eastern and Southern Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACCs) there is not a single concentrated fire season (“season” starts/ends in the first/last few weeks of the year). This data is for a single simulation, the RegCM4 regional climate model driven by the HadGEM2-ES global climate model, from the NA-CORDEX data archive. Note that this is a single model that is part of a larger ensemble, and should not be solely relied upon. This visualization was made as part of NSF Growing Convergence Project 2019762.
