Characteristics and trend of the wildfire activity in the Southern Hemisphere (2003-2022)
Abstract
Global wildfire activity has a major impact on regional climates because of the large amount of particulate matter injected into the atmosphere during and after the biomass burning. If its evolution has been extensively studied in specific regions of the globe, very few studies have been presented for the Southern Hemisphere, at a continental scale. This study aims to evaluate wildfire activity across three continents: Southern Africa (SAF), South America (SAM), and Oceania (OCE), and quantify its trend over the last two decades (2004-2024), using Active Fire MODIS satellite data. The first key outcome of this work is the heterogeneity of the wildfire seasonality among the three continents. The Oceanian continent, in particular, showed no clear seasonality during the studied time period, suggesting that different fire regimes co-exist in this area. The SAF and SAM continents exhibited clear seasonal patterns with a 20-week fire activity duration from May to October, characterised by low inter-annual variability for SAF, and a 14-week duration from July to October, marked by high inter-annual variability for SAM. Trend-changing points were determined using the robust Piecewise Linear Functions method, leading to different time slicing for each continent's trends. In terms of fire number (and summed FRP) tendencies, the results show a decrease of -13 (-21)% per decade for SAF (2010-2022), and an increase of +22 (+42)% per decade for SAM (2013-2022). The number (and summed FRP)…
Read the paper
Related studies
- Understanding the factors influencing fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith) damage in African smallholder maize fields and quantifying its impact on yield. A case study in Eastern Zimbabwe
- Alarming situation of emerging H5 and H7 avian influenza and effective control strategies
- Livestock and food security: vulnerability to population growth and climate change
- Atmosphere–ocean oxygen and productivity dynamics during early animal radiations
- Characterization of the global distribution and diversified plasmid reservoirs of the colistin resistance gene mcr-9
- The global seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in pigs: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.