wildfires

Temperature increases during dry periods outpace average climate warming

Extreme lightning storms are the main driver of recent massive fire years in Alaska and Canada, and these storms are likely to move farther north with climate warming, potentially altering landscapes, according to findings in Nature Climate Change by researchers from UCI, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and elsewhere. Analyzing satellite images and data from ground-based networks, […]

UCI, other researchers examine differences between summer, Santa Ana fires

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and NASA have uncovered a remarkably strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and the devastating hurricanes that ravage North Atlantic shorelines. The climate scientists’ findings appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters near the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s calamitous August 2005 landfall at New Orleans.

UCI Earth system science researchers Yang Chen and Jim Randerson, along with NASA colleagues, are predicting an above-average wildfire risk in the eastern Amazon region and an average to below-average fire risk in the western Amazon for the upcoming dry season.

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 2, 2015 – For a better understanding of how forest fires behave and interact with climate, scientists are turning to the trees. A new study out of UC Irvine shows that differences in individual tree species between Eurasia and North America alter the continental patterns of fire – and that blazes burning […]

Titanium golf clubs can generate sparks, ignite brush in the rough, UCI study finds

UCI researchers can forecast wildfires using sea surface temperatures.