Significant Association Between Arctic Oscillation and Winter Wildfires in Southern China

Abstract

The recent increase of regional wildfire occurrences has been associated with climate change. In this study, we investigated the association between the February to March wildfire points and burned area in the southern region of China (20°N–30°N and 105°E–115°E) and the simultaneous Arctic Oscillation (AO) index during 2001–2022 and 2001–2020, respectively. After removing the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole signals, time series of the regional mean fire points and burned area over the study area is significantly correlated with the AO index at − 0.37 and − 0.47, significant at the 0.1 level. Precipitation significantly affects wildfire variations. The positive AO could trigger a southeastward Rossby wave train and induce anomalous cyclone activity approximately located in the area encompassed by 15°N–27°N and 85°E–100°E. This outcome could help to enhance the southern branch trough and results in positive precipitation anomalies in southern China. This increasing moisture is conductive to reducing wildfire risks, vice versa. Our results are potentially useful for strengthening the understanding of the mechanisms of wildfire occurrences in southern China.

Keywords

Arctic Oscillation / Climate change / ENSO / Southern China wildfires

References

[1] Bowd EJ, Banks SC, Bissett A, May TW, Lindenmayer DB. Direct and indirect disturbance impacts in forests. Ecology Letters, 2021, 24(6): 1225-1236

[2] Chen F, Fan ZF, Niu SK, Zheng JM. The influence of precipitation and consecutive dry days on burned areas in Yunnan Province, southwestern China. Advances in Meteorology, 2014, 2014(3–4): 748923

[3] Chen AP, Tang RY, Mao JF, Yue C, Li XR, Gao MD, Shi XY, Jin MZ, et al. Spatiotemporal dynamics of ecosystem fires and biomass burning-induced carbon emissions in China over the past two decades. Geography and Sustainability, 2020, 1(1): 47-58

[4] Chen JP, Wen ZP, Wu RG, Chen ZS, Zhao P. Interdecadal changes in the relationship between southern China winter-spring precipitation and ENSO. Climate Dynamics, 2014, 43: 1327-1338

[5] Cui LL, Luo CJ, Yao CL, Zou ZB, Wu GL, Li Q, Wang XL. The influence of climate change on forest fires in Yunnan Province, southwest China detected by GRACE satellites. Remote Sensing, 2022, 14(3): 712

[6] Di Virgilio G, Evans JP, Blake SAP, Armstrong M, Dowdy AJ, Sharples J, McRae R. Climate change increases the potential for extreme wildfires. Geophysical Research Letters, 2019, 46(14): 8517-8526

[7] Dong XY, Fu JS. Understanding interannual variations of biomass burning from peninsular southeast Asia, part II: Variability and different influences in lower and higher atmosphere levels. Atmospheric Environment, 2015, 115: 9-18

[8] Fang KY, Yao QC, Guo ZT, Zheng B, Du JH, Qi FZ, Yan P, Li J, et al. ENSO modulates wildfire activity in China. Nature Communications, 2021, 12: 1764

[9] Flannigan M, Cantin AS, de Groot WJ, Wotton M, Newbery A, Gowman LM. Global wildland fire season severity in the 21st century. Forest Ecology and Management, 2013, 294: 54-61

[10] Gao M-N, Yang J, Gong D-Y, Kim S-J. Unstable relationship between spring Arctic Oscillation and east Asian summer monsoon. International Journal of Climatology, 2014, 34(7): 2522-2528

[11] Gong D-Y, Gao YQ, Guo D, Mao R, Yang J, Hu M, Gao MN. Interannual linkage between Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation and tropical Indian Ocean precipitation during boreal winter. Climate Dynamics, 2013, 42(3–4): 1007-1027

[12] Gong D-Y, Gao Y-Q, Hu M, Guo D. Association of Indian Ocean ITCZ variations with the Arctic Oscillation during boreal winter. Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, 2013, 6(5): 300-305

[13] Gu YS, Pearsall DM, Xie SC, Yu JX. Vegetation and fire history of a Chinese site in southern tropical Xishuangbanna derived from phytolith and charcoal records from Holocene sediments. Journal of Biogeography, 2008, 35(2): 325-341

[14] Guan ZY, Yamagata T. The unusual summer of 1994 in East Asia: IOD teleconnections. Geophysical Research Letters, 2003

[15] Guo M, Yao QC, Suo HQ, Xu XX, Li J, He HS, Yin S, Li JN. The importance degree of weather elements in driving wildfire occurrence in mainland China. Ecological Indicators, 2023, 148: 110152

[16] Harris I, Osborn TJ, Jones P, Lister D. Version 4 of the CRU TS monthly high-resolution gridded multivariate climate dataset. Scientific Data, 2020, 7: 109

[17] Hersbach H, Bell B, Berrisford P, Hirahara S, Horányi A, Muñoz-Sabater J, Nicolas J, Peubey C, et al. The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2020, 146(730): 1999-2049

[18] Holsinger L, Parks SA, Miller C. Weather, fuels, and topography impede wildland fire spread in western US landscapes. Forest Ecology and Management, 2016, 380: 59-69

[19] Jones MW, Abatzoglou JT, Veraverbeke S, Andela N, Lasslop G, Forkel M, Smith AJP, Burton C, et al. Global and regional trends and drivers of fire under climate change. Reviews of Geophysics, 2022, 60(3): e2020RG000726

[20] Li XZ, Zhou W. Modulation of the interannual variation of the India-Burma trough on the winter moisture supply over southwest China. Climate Dynamics, 2016, 46: 147-158

[21] Li XZ, Chen YQD, Zhou W. Response of winter moisture circulation to the India-Burma trough and its modulation by the South Asian waveguide. Journal of Climate, 2017, 30(4): 1197-1210

[22] Li P, Feng ZM, Xiao CW, Boudmyxay K, Liu Y. Detecting and mapping annual newly-burned plots (NBP) of swiddening using historical Landsat data in montane mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) during 1988–2016. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2018, 28(9): 1307-1328

[23] Li J-X, Liu G, Wu RG, Ren H-L, Wang H-M, Mao X, Wei X-C. Narrow and wide India-Burma trough-like circulations: Their different impacts on precipitation over southern China. Geoscience Letters, 2022, 9: 1-12

[24] Lizundia-Loiola J, Otón G, Ramo R, Chuvieco E. A spatio-temporal active-fire clustering approach for global burned area mapping at 250 m from MODIS data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 2020, 236: 111493

[25] Luo YY, Shi J, An XD, Li C. The combined impact of subtropical wave train and polar-Eurasian teleconnection on the extreme cold event over North China in January 2021. Climate Dynamics, 2022, 60: 3339-3352

[26] Lydersen JM, Collins BM, Brooks ML, Matchett JR, Shive KL, Povak NA, Kane VR, Smith DF. Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event. Ecological Applications, 2017, 27: 2013-2030

[27] Mao R, Gong D-Y, Yang J, Bao J-D. Linkage between the Arctic Oscillation and winter extreme precipitation over central-southern China. Climate Research, 2011, 50(2): 187-201

[28] Pan Y, Zhang Y, Li ST. Assessment of CMIP models in simulating the relationship between wintertime atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter-spring temperature over the Tibetan Plateau. Journal of the Meteorological Sciences, 2022, 42(4): 440-456

[29] Pausas JG, Keeley JE. Wildfires and global change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2021, 19(7): 387-395

[30] Peterson DA, Fromm MD, Mcrae RHD, Campbell JR, Hyer EJ, Taha G, Camacho CP, Kablick GP, et al. Australia’s Black Summer pyrocumulonimbus super outbreak reveals potential for increasingly extreme stratospheric smoke events. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 2021, 4(1): 38

[31] Qiu Y, Cai WJ, Guo XG, Ng B. The asymmetric influence of the positive and negative IOD events on China’s rainfall. Scientific Reports, 2014, 4: 4943

[32] Reddy MS, Boucher O, Balkanski Y, Schulz M. Aerosol optical depths and direct radiative perturbations by species and source type. Geophysical Research Letters, 2005, 32(12): L12803

[33] Suo MQ, Ding YH, Wang ZY. Relationship between Rossby wave propagation in southern branch of westerlies and the formation of the southern branch trough in wintertime. Journal of Applied Meteorological Science, 2008, 19(6): 731-740

[34] Takaya K, Nakamura H. A formulation of a phase-independent wave-activity flux for stationary and migratory quasigeostrophic eddies on a zonally varying basic flow. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2001, 58(6): 608-627

[35] Thompson DWJ, Wallace JM. The Arctic Oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields. Geophysical Research Letters, 1998, 25: 1297-1300

[36] Wang TM, Yang S, Wen ZP, Wu RG, Zhao P. Variations of the winter India-Burma trough and their links to climate anomalies over southern and eastern Asia. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2011, 116(D23): D23118

[37] Wu XF, Mao JF. Interdecadal modulation of ENSO-related spring rainfall over South China by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Climate Dynamics, 2016, 47: 3203-3220

[38] Xu Y, Nadine U. Fire air pollution reduces global terrestrial productivity. Nature Communications, 2018, 9: 5413

[39] Xu K, Zhu CW, Wang WQ. The cooperative impacts of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole on the interannual variability of autumn rainfall in China. International Journal of Climatology, 2016, 36: 1987-1999

[40] Yang J, Gong DY, Wang WS, Hu M, Mao R. Extreme drought event of 2009/2010 over southwestern China. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 2012, 115(3–4): 173-184

[41] Ying LX, Cheng HJ, Shen ZH, Guan PA, Luo CF, Peng XZ. Relative humidity and agricultural activities dominate wildfire ignitions in Yunnan, southwest China: Patterns, thresholds, and implications. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2021, 307: 108540

[42] Ying LX, Han J, Du YS, Shen ZH. Forest fire characteristics in China: Spatial patterns and determinants with thresholds. Forest Ecology and Management, 2018, 424: 345-354

[43] Yu PF, Davis SM, Toon OB, Portmann RW, Bardeen CG, Barnes JE, Telg H, Maloney C, et al. Persistent stratospheric warming due to 2019–2020 Australian wildfire smoke. Geophysical Research Letters, 2021, 48: e2021GL092609

[44] Yu Y, Mao JF, Wullschleger SD, Chen AP, Shi XY, Wang YP, Hoffman FM, Zhang YL, et al. Machine learning-based observation-constrained projections reveal elevated global socioeconomic risks from wildfire. Nature Communications, 2022, 13: 1250

[45] Zhang L, Sielmann F, Fraedrich K, Zhu XH, Zhi XF. Variability of winter extreme precipitation in Southeast China: Contributions of SST anomalies. Climate Dynamics, 2015, 45: 2557-2570

[46] Zhang RH, Tian WS, He X, Qie K, Liu D, Tian HY. Enhanced influence of ENSO on winter precipitation over southern China in recent decades. Journal of Climate, 2021, 34: 7983-7994

[47] Zhang Y, Zhou W, Leung MYT. Phase relationship between summer and winter monsoons over the South China Sea: Indian Ocean and ENSO forcing. Climate Dynamics, 2019, 52: 5229-5248

[48] Zhang Y, Zhou W, Wang X, Wang X, Zhang RH, Li YN, Gan JP. IOD, ENSO, and seasonal precipitation variation over eastern China. Atmospheric Research, 2022, 270: 106042

[49] Zhou YW, Liao WP, Yang J, Huang XF, Chen CH. Based on MODIS fire pixel location data to characterize the biomass burning and air pollutants emissions in northern and southern China. Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae, 2021, 41(9): 3696-3708