Studies and observations have pointed out that recent wildfires have been more severe and burned area is increasing. The current presentation aims at discussing the influence of oceanic climate modes and their teleconnection on global fire danger and trends in the 1980–2020 interval. Disentangling these trends demonstrates that across the extratropics they are primarily related to increases in temperature, whereas in the tropics changes in short-term precipitation distribution dominates the trends. Moreover, the environmental impact of short-term precipitation is dependent on local vegetation type and tightly related to oceanic temperatures far from the burned areas. Indeed, in the 2001–2020 period, a warmer tropical North Atlantic was associated with more fires in the Amazon and Africa, whereas ENSO has weakened the fire activity in equatorial Africa. The remarkable impact of oceanic modes of climate variability in inducing environmental conditions conducive to fires, has particular relevance for the seasonal spatiotemporal wildfire forecasts. Although local aspects are crucial for fire management, long-term predictions should take into account the behavior of potential climate drivers located far from the region of interest. Such teleconnections can be identified ahead of local weather anomalies.
Professor Flavio Justino has experience in the area of Geosciences, with an emphasis on Meteorology, working mainly on the following topics: Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction, Climate Change (past, present and future), Cryosphere and Ocean Circulation and topics related to climate-related agriculture and food security. In 2002, he won the best paper award as a junior scientist from the Helmholtz Foundation in Germany. He was a researcher at the Minas Gerais Researcher Program (PPM). He was awarded the title of Simon Fellow at the Center for Theoretical Physics of Trieste in Italy (ICTP/UNESCO). He is currently the representative of the Brazilian government on the Agriculture and Climate Change Commission of the World Meteorological Organization and Chief Expert of the Working Group on extreme climate and weather events. Leader of Expert Team on Agricultural Risk Management (ET-ARM) at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
