Future projections of the Fire Weather Index (FWI) using CORDEX-CORE and CMIP5 and CMIP6 simulations.

The Fire Weather Index (FWI) is a meteorologically based index used worldwide to estimate fire danger. In the framework of the CORDEX-CORE project, we investigate how changes in relative humidity, wind, temperature and precipitation can act together in fire danger. Two regional climate models have been used at 0.22° resolution to downscale 3 global climate models from the CMIP5 project. We show results of the high resolution Fire Weather Index (FWI), calculated for 9 CORDEX domains and for two climate scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5). Mid-future (2041-2060) and Far-future (2081-2100)  fire danger changes are compared with those obtained using two ensembles of CMIP5 and CMIP6 global models. The index is projected to increase in those areas that are already affected by seasonal fires such as Spain and Southern Italy for the Mediterranean Basin, the central band of Brazil, Northern Chile, South Africa and Australia. Global and regional models FWI patterns mostly agree in the seasonal spatial distribution of fires but CORDEX-CORE simulations with their higher resolution are able to catch more in detail fires in areas not detected by global models simulations.