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1607655 
Journal Article 
The impact of spatial resolution on area burned and fire occurrence projections in Portugal under climate change 
Carvalho, A; Flannigan, MD; Logan, KimA; Gowman, LM; Miranda, AnaI; Borrego, C 
2010 
Yes 
Climatic Change
ISSN: 0165-0009
EISSN: 1573-1480 
98 
1-2 
177-197 
WOS:000272781700009 
In this study, we investigated the impact of future climate
change on fire activity in 12 districts across Portugal. Using historical relationships and the
HIRHAM (High Resolution Hamburg Model) 12 and 25 km climate simulations, we assessed the fire
weather and subsequent fire activity under a 2 x CO2 scenario. We found that the fire activity
prediction was not affected by the spatial resolution of the climate model used (12 vs. 25 km).
Future area burned is predicted to increase 478% for Portugal as a whole, which equates to an
increase from 1.4% to 7.8% of the available burnable area burning annually. Fire occurrence will
also see a dramatic increase (279%) for all of Portugal. There is significant spatial variation
within these results; the north and central districts of the country generally will see larger
increases in fire activity.