Articles | Volume 21, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-109-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-109-2024
Research article
 | 
05 Jan 2024
Research article |  | 05 Jan 2024

Geographically divergent trends in snow disappearance timing and fire ignitions across boreal North America

Thomas D. Hessilt, Brendan M. Rogers, Rebecca C. Scholten, Stefano Potter, Thomas A. J. Janssen, and Sander Veraverbeke

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Cited articles

Abatzoglou, J. T. and Williams, A. P.: Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 113, 11770–11775, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113, 2016. 
Abatzoglou, J. T., Kolden, C. A., Balch, J. K., and Bradley, B. A.: Controls on interannual variability in lightning-caused fire activity in the western US, Environ. Res. Lett., 11, 045005, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/045005, 2016. 
Albert-Green, A., Dean, C. B., Martell, D. L., and Woolford, D. G.: A methodology for investigating trends in changes in the timing of the fire season with applications to lightning-caused forest fires in Alberta and Ontario, Canada, Can. J. For. Res., 43, 39–45, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2011-0432, 2013. 
Alves, M., Nadeau, D. F., Music, B., Anctil, F., and Parajuli, A.: On the performance of the Canadian land surface scheme driven by the ERA5 reanalysis over the Canadian boreal forest, J. Hydrometeorol., 21, 1383–1404, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-19-0172.1, 2020. 
Anisimov, O. A., Vaughan, D. G., Callaghan, T. V., Furgal, C., Marchant, H., Prowse, T. D., Vilhjalmsson, H., and Walsh, J. E.: Polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic), Clim. Chang. 2007 Impacts, Adapt. Vulnerability. Contrib. ofWorking Gr. II to Fourth As- sessment Rep. Intergov. Panel Clim. Chang., 653–685, 2007. 
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Short summary
In boreal North America, snow and frozen ground prevail in winter, while fires occur in summer. Over the last 20 years, the northwestern parts have experienced earlier snow disappearance and more ignitions. This is opposite to the southeastern parts. However, earlier ignitions following earlier snow disappearance timing led to larger fires across the region. Snow disappearance timing may be a good proxy for ignition timing and may also influence important atmospheric conditions related to fires.
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