Climate and demographic impacts on wildfire air pollution hazards during the 21^st century (original) (raw)

2016, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions

Wildfires pose a significant risk to human livelihoods and are a substantial health hazard due to emissions of toxic smoke. It is widely believed that climate change, through increasing the frequency of hot weather conditions, will also lead to an increase in wildfire activity. More recently, however, new research has shown that trends in population growth and urbanisation can be as important for fire prediction as changes in climate and atmospheric CO 2 , and that under certain scenarios, fire activity may continue to decline through most of the 21 st century. The present study reexamines these results from the perspective of air pollution risk, focussing on emissions of airborne particulate matter (PM2.5). We combine an existing ensemble of simulations using a coupled fire-dynamic vegetation model with current observation-based estimates of wildfire emissions to predict future trends. Currently,