대규모 기후인자와 관련된 우리나라 봄철 산불위험도 변동

Abstract

This study investigated the variability of spring (March-May) forest fire risk in Korea for the period 1991~2017 and analyzed its relationship with large-scale climate factors. The Forest Weather Index (FWI) representing the meteorological risk for forest fire occurrences calculated based on observational data and its relationship with large-scale climate factors were analyzed. We performed the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis on the spring FWI. The leading EOF mode of FWI accounting for about 70% of total variability was found to be highly correlated with total number of forest fire occurrences in Korea. The high FWI, forest fire occurrence risk, in Korea, is associated with warmer atmosphere temperature in midwest Eurasia- China-Korea peninsula, cyclonic circulation anomaly in northeastern China-Korea peninsula- northwest pacific, westerly wind anomaly in central China-Korea peninsula, and low humidity in Korea. These are further related with warmer sea surface temperature and enhanced outgoing longwave radiation over Western Pacific, which represents a typical condition for a La Niña episode. This suggests that large-scale climate factors over East Asia and ENSO could have a significant influence on the occurrence of spring forest fires in Korea.