Observed links between heatwaves and wildfires across Northern high latitudes

Data on Arctic and Sub-Arctic summer heat events are limited due to the sparse network of surface observation stations. Here, we analyze large heat events within 60°–80°N using land surface temperature (LST) observations from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental research letters 2024-03, Vol.19 (3), p.34041
Main Authors: Hegedűs, D, Ballinger, A P, Hegerl, G C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
arctic
burned area
Clustering
earth observation
Heat
Heat waves
heatwaves
Land surface temperature
Latitude
MODIS
Prairies
remote sensing
Spectroradiometers
Summer
Tundra
Wildfires
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Summary:Data on Arctic and Sub-Arctic summer heat events are limited due to the sparse network of surface observation stations. Here, we analyze large heat events within 60°–80°N using land surface temperature (LST) observations from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the Terra satellite. Our heatwave (HW) detection method uses exceedances of the climatological 90th percentile of LST across summer months, and a spatio-temporal density-based clustering algorithm to distinguish space-time coherent events across Northern Hemispheric high latitudes for the summers of 2000–2022. We find a close link between HW duration, spatial extent and amplitude across the study region (correlations ranging from 0.63 to 0.73). MODIS-derived burned area data show that wildfire seasons are significantly correlated to summer HW activity, particularly in Siberia ( r  = 0.87 at p  
ISSN:1748-9326
1748-9326
DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ad2b29