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El Niņo Could Drive Intense Season for Amazon Fires
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/el-ni-o-could-drive-intense-season-for-amazon-fires[font face=Serif]June 29, 2016
[font size=5]El Niño Could Drive Intense Season for Amazon Fires[/font]
[font size=4]The long-lasting effects of El Niño are projected to cause an intense fire season in the Amazon, according to the 2016 seasonal fire forecast from scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine.[/font]
[font size=3]El Niño conditions in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon, El Niño reduced rainfall during the wet season, leaving the region drier at the start of the 2016 dry season than any year since 2002, according to NASA satellite data.
Wildfire risk for the dry season months of July to October this year now exceeds fire risk in 2005 and 2010, drought years when wildfires burned large areas of Amazon rainforest, said Doug Morton, an Earth scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who helped create the fire forecast.
[font size=1]On a scale of zero to 100, the risk of severe fire activity in July, August and September is high for six states in Braxil (Acre, Amazonas, Maranhao, Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia), three departments in Bolivia (El Beni, Pando, and Santa Cruz), and one country (Peru).
Credits: Yang Chen, University of California, Irvine[/font]
"Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon," Morton said.
The Amazon fire forecast uses the relationship between climate and active fire detections from NASA satellites to predict fire season severity during the region’s dry season. Developed in 2011 by scientists at University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the forecast model is focused particularly on the link between sea surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific (El Niño) and Atlantic oceans shift rainfall away from the Amazon region, increasing the risk of fires during dry season months.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=5]El Niño Could Drive Intense Season for Amazon Fires[/font]
[font size=4]The long-lasting effects of El Niño are projected to cause an intense fire season in the Amazon, according to the 2016 seasonal fire forecast from scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine.[/font]
[font size=3]El Niño conditions in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon, El Niño reduced rainfall during the wet season, leaving the region drier at the start of the 2016 dry season than any year since 2002, according to NASA satellite data.
Wildfire risk for the dry season months of July to October this year now exceeds fire risk in 2005 and 2010, drought years when wildfires burned large areas of Amazon rainforest, said Doug Morton, an Earth scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who helped create the fire forecast.
[font size=1]On a scale of zero to 100, the risk of severe fire activity in July, August and September is high for six states in Braxil (Acre, Amazonas, Maranhao, Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia), three departments in Bolivia (El Beni, Pando, and Santa Cruz), and one country (Peru).
Credits: Yang Chen, University of California, Irvine[/font]
"Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon," Morton said.
The Amazon fire forecast uses the relationship between climate and active fire detections from NASA satellites to predict fire season severity during the region’s dry season. Developed in 2011 by scientists at University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the forecast model is focused particularly on the link between sea surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific (El Niño) and Atlantic oceans shift rainfall away from the Amazon region, increasing the risk of fires during dry season months.
…[/font][/font]