Smoke-weather interaction affects extreme wildfires in diverse coastal regions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Huang, Xin; Ding, Ke; Liu, Jingyi; Wang, Zilin; Tang, Rong; Xue, Lian; Wang, Haikun; Zhang, Qiang; Tan, Zhe-Min; Fu, Congbin; Davis, Steven J.; Andreae, Meinrat O.; Ding, Aijun
• 署名单位: Nanjing University; Nanjing University; Tsinghua University; University of California System; University of California Irvine; Max Planck Society; University of California System; University of California San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; King Saud University
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-11324
• DOI: 10.1126/science.add9843
• 发表日期: 2023-02-03
• 页码: 457-461
• 关键词: southeast-asia; pollution; drought; fire; impacts

摘要

Extreme wildfires threaten human lives, air quality, and ecosystems. Meteorology plays a vital role in wildfire behaviors, and the links between wildfires and climate have been widely studied. However, it is not fully clear how fire-weather feedback affects short-term wildfire variability, which undermines our ability to mitigate fire disasters. Here, we show the primacy of synoptic -scale feedback in driving extreme fires in Mediterranean and monsoon climate regimes in the West Coast of the United States and Southeastern Asia. We found that radiative effects of smoke aerosols can modify near-surface wind, air dryness, and rainfall and thus worsen air pollution by enhancing fire emissions and weakening dispersion. The intricate interactions among wildfires, smoke, and weather form a positive feedback loop that substantially increases air pollution exposure.