How are fires and their impacts going to change in the future?

Impacts of climate changes on Santa Ana winds (UCLA)

To construct spatially distributed climate datasets for the potential future climatic periods (2010–2100), the WRF regional climate model will be driven by the global climate data generated by National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model (CCSM3) when Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B emission scenario is imposed (Fig. 8; Nakicenovic and Swart 2000). The emission scenario assumes balanced energy generation between fossil and non-fossil fuel; the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are located near the averages of all SRES emission scenarios. Two time slices will be simulated and downscaled to a 6-kilometer resolution over California, one corresponding to the late twentieth century (1980-2000), and another corresponding to the mid-twenty first century (2041-2060). An understanding of the dynamics of Santa Ana winds allows us to identify how large-scale changes in the future climate affect Santa Ana events. We will compare the downscaled regional climate at the late twentieth century and the mid- twenty first century, and assess the mechanisms driving the change of regional climate and its impacts on the frequency and intensity of Santa Ana events. Specifically, we will investigate the change in the Santa Ana occurrences per year, the number of Santa Ana days, the start and end date of Santa Ana occurrence. We will also examine if there will be any extreme drought of long periods.