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Climate Futures for Tasmania

Discussion document:

Implications for fire danger in bushfire prone areas of Tasmania

May 2010

Climate Futures for Tasmania – Discussion document:


For restricted circulation only Compiled by Climate Futures for Tasmania of 21 22 June 2010

Discussion document


White CJ, Fox-Hughes P, Grose MR, Corney S, Bennett JC, Holz GK, Gaynor S and Bindoff NL

June 2010

Frequently used acronyms

Australian Water Availability Project AWAP

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report AR4

Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model CCAM

Global Climate Model GCM

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC




Table of Contents

1 Introduction 4 1.1 Purpose of this document 4 1.2 Conditions of release 4

2 Bushfire danger in Tasmania 4 2.1 Calculation of fire danger 4 2.2 Fire danger in Tasmania 5 2.3 Forecasting fire danger 7 2.4 Seasonal forecasting 10

3 Future bushfire weather 10 3.1 The Climate Futures for Tasmania project 10 3.2 Using the climate projections 11 3.3 Future projections relevant to bushfire weather 12

4 References 20

Disclaimer and Conditions of Use

The Climate Futures for Tasmania project has provided analysed data from climate simulations in the discussion document 'Implications for fire danger in bushfire prone areas of Tasmania' to Sue Stack of the Bushfire CRC at the University of Tasmania. The generation of the climate data was commissioned by the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) as part of its Climate Futures for Tasmania project.

The analysed data provided to the Bushfire CRC is of a preliminary nature. The analysed data has been released early for the purpose of using the modelling outputs for complementary research and student course material. This analysed data is yet to be peer reviewed, confirmed or published, and therefore should not be taken as final. Any copies, reproductions, developments or conclusions based on the Climate Futures for Tasmania modelling outputs and/or analysed data must not be published prior to the Climate Futures for Tasmania Extreme Events Technical Report, which is due for release later in 2010. This discussion paper should not be circulated beyond the participants of the Planning and Managing for Climate Change (KGA518) course at the University of Tasmania.

The Climate Futures for Tasmania datasets contain climate simulations based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of real physical processes. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by the ACE CRC or the Climate Futures for Tasmania project for the accuracy of simulations or projections inferred from the datasets or for any person's interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance of the climate simulations.




1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this document

This Discussion Document was prepared as supporting documentation for the Natural

Disaster Resilience Program (NDRP) application titled ‘Impact of Climate Change on fire risk,

natural hazards, and policy responses’ proposed by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems

Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC). The discussion paper was later supplied to Sue

Stack at the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre for use as teaching material for the

Planning and Managing for Climate Change course (KGA518).

It contains observations from the Bureau of Meteorology and an early release of preliminary

projections from the Climate Futures for Tasmania project to provide information on the

potential and capacity of the research conclusions for the assessment of bushfire risk in

Tasmania. The information provided relates to the current drivers of bushfire weather

conditions and the likely impacts of climate change on the occurrence of bushfire weather.

This document contains excerpts from the Bureau of Meteorology and three technical reports

from the Climate Futures for Tasmania project (Corney et al., 2010; Grose et al., 2010;

White et al., 2010), all of which are currently in the scientific peer review process.

1.2 Conditions of release

The results from the Climate Futures for Tasmania research contained in this Discussion

Document are yet to be published; therefore, circulation of this document is restricted. See

disclaimer at front of the document.

2 Bushfire danger in Tasmania

2.1 Calculation of fire danger

A number of measures of “fire danger” have been developed over several decades, in fire-

prone areas around the world. In much of Australia, and in particular Tasmania, the Mark V

McArthur forest fire danger meter (McArthur, 1967; Noble et al., 1980) is used operationally

for the prediction of the difficulty of suppression of any fires that are ignited. The meter uses

inputs of air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, together with a measure of fuel

dryness, to calculate a “forest fire danger index”, FFDI, value. It is well recognized that the

index is limited, but proposed alternatives have not proven popular to date with land and fire

managers.




The fuel dryness is included in FFDI calculation through a ‘drought factor’ that combines the

effects of soil moisture deficit and recent precipitation on fuel moisture. The meter was

recently modified to ensure a smooth transition between fuel moisture categories (Griffiths,

1998; 1999). In Tasmania, for many years the Mount Soil Dryness Index (Mount, 1972) has

been used as a ground moisture input (or indicator of longer term drying) to modulate the

drought factor input to the fire danger index. A number of fire danger rating categories are

defined from ranges of FFDI values. Following the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission

Interim Report of 2009, these have been reassigned as: ‘Low-Moderate’ 0-11, ‘High’ 12-24,

‘Very High’ 25-49, ‘Severe’ 50-74, ‘Extreme’ 75-99 and ‘Catastrophic’ 100+.

2.2 Fire danger in Tasmania

High quality datasets of weather parameters have been used in a number of studies to assess

the fire danger in Tasmania (e.g. Lucas, 2006; Fox-Hughes, 2008). It is generally recognized

that southeast Tasmania, including the Hobart area, is subject to the highest fire danger in

the state. Figure 1 shows a contoured map of (approximate) boundaries of fire danger

recorded in the last decade in Tasmania. The data is constructed from Automatic Weather

Station records and the manual stations of Ross and Melton Mowbray (which record data

much less frequently than AWS, but are in otherwise data-sparse areas), using wind speeds

averaged over 10 minutes. Southeast Tasmania has been subject to what is currently

referred to as ‘Catastrophic’ fire danger on several occasions in the last ten years, while some

other parts of the state, particularly about the north coast and highlands, have never

recorded more than ‘Very High’ fire danger.




Figure 1. Maximum fire danger recorded from (mostly) Automatic

Weather Stations in Tasmania in the last decade. “Catastrophic” fire

danger has occurred on a number of occasions in southeast TAS. In the past, summer and autumn was regarded as the peak fire danger period in Tasmania

(Luke and McArthur, 1978). Recently, however, it has become clear that a secondary peak of

fire danger has developed in springtime, at least in the southeast and east (Fox-Hughes,

2008). Figure 2 shows the increase over the last several decades in the number of serious

springtime fire danger episodes. This change fits within a broader, more gradual, increase in

recorded fire danger across all seasons.

Hobart: Number of springtime Very High FFDI >=40 events by decade

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1947-56 57-66 67-76 77-86 87-96 97-06

Decade

Nu

mb

er o

f ev

ents




Hobart Airport Seasonal Percentile FFDI

0

5

10

15

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25

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40

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

P95

P99

P995

Linear (P995)

Linear (P99)

Linear (P95)

Figure 2. Decadal variation in the number of fire danger events where the FFDI at

Hobart has reached at least 40.

Figure 3, for example, displays the 95th, 99th and 99.5th percentile values of FFDI at Hobart

Airport between 1960 and 2006, using all data across all seasons. It is clear that there is an

increasing trend, and that the increase is faster at the more extreme end of the data. This is

consistent with other research (e.g. Alexander et al., 2007) detailing a more rapid increase in

extreme events compared to the average.

Figure 3. 95th (blue) 99th (pink) and 99.5th (yellow) percentiles of fire danger at

Hobart Airport between 1960 and 2006, together with linear regression lines in

corresponding colours.

2.3 Forecasting fire danger

Bad fire danger days typically occur in southeastern Tasmania when a high pressure system

is located in the Tasman Sea, and an approaching cold front or trough of low pressure directs




a north to northwesterly airstream over the state (Brotak and Reifsnyder, 1977; Marsh,

1987). The airstream originates over inland continental Australia and is usually hot and dry

during the warmer months. A foehn effect acts to further warm air as it descends from the

Central Highlands of Tasmania into the southeast (Sharples et al., 2010).

On a routine basis during the warmer months, forecasters employ a variety of conceptual and

numerical weather models to predict fire danger in Tasmania. Numerical weather model data

is used directly to assess likely weather, however, fields of fire danger can be created to

provide a summary of expected higher fire danger (Finkele et al., 2006). U.S. studies (e.g.

Hoadley et al., 2004) and local operational experience have suggested that such techniques

can often pick trends and regional variations in fire danger quite well, but often miss peaks

and extreme values. Figure 4 provides an example of a forecast successful in representing

the area of elevated fire danger, together with the trends during the day, but which under

forecast the extreme values recorded on that day.

Recent research has suggested useful forecasting tools on days of anticipated fire danger.

For example, Mills (2002) examined the structure of cool changes propagating through

coastal areas of southeastern Australia, and looked in detail at a Hobart event that had

significant aviation, as well as fire weather, consequences (Mills and Pendlebury, 2003). An

understanding of the structure of the wind field on days of elevated fire danger is critically

important for fire management, and this research allowed forecasters to appreciate the

complex interaction between cool changes and the land-sea interface.




Hobart Airport Forest Fire Danger 7 November 2002

-20

-10

0

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6:00

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:30

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316

:58

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:37

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019

:43

20:1

520

:45

21:3

0

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60

80

100

120

140

160

temp

dewpt

windspeed

ffdi

Figure 4. Fourteen hour forecast of fire danger for Tasmania on 12 October

2006 from the Bureau of Meteorology operational mesoscale numerical

weather model. The forecast successfully indicated the area of elevated fire

danger, but values of fire danger were under forecast.

Satellite data has for many years been invaluable in weather forecasting. Increasingly,

information from the 6.7μm water vapour band is being used to assess the likelihood of rapid

falls in relative humidity (and increases in fire danger) associated with the approach of a cold

front (Mills, 2008; Zimet et al., 2007). Dry air from high in the atmosphere can descend

under the influence of jet stream circulations to mid- to lower layers where thermal mixing or

mountain wave activity can direct it to the surface. A number of extreme Tasmanian fire

weather events bear the signature of such a process, including some currently being studied.

Figure 5 plots individual weather parameters together with calculated FFDI at Hobart Airport

for one such event, while Figure 6 displays a water vapour image from a U.S. GOES satellite

earlier in the afternoon. A filament of low moisture air from close to the tropopause (grey

shade) crossed Tasmania a short time before the surface weather parameters abruptly

changed to cause an upward spike in the fire danger experienced in southeast Tasmania.

Figure 5. Plot of weather and fire danger from Hobart Airport 7 November 2002. Note the spike in

fire danger as dewpoint temperature (a measure of moisture content of the air) drops and wind

increases in the early evening.




Figure 6. Water vapour image from the afternoon of 7 November 2002. A “dry slot” crosses

Tasmania shortly ahead of the surface increase in fire danger.

2.4 Seasonal forecasting

Forecasting for an approaching fire season currently relies on assessments of likely above or

below average precipitation during the fire season. These in turn are predicated on

relationships established between, particularly, El Nino-Southern Oscillation trends and those

of the Indian Ocean Dipole. There has been some research that directly relates ENSO and

IOD trends to interannual variations in Tasmanian fire weather (Williams and Karoly, 1999;

Nicholls and Lucas, 2007) but more remains to be done.

3 Future bushfire weather

3.1 The Climate Futures for Tasmania project

Climate change is a global phenomenon, however the impacts are not evenly distributed over

the globe. Global climate models, due to their coarse resolution, are unable tell us much

about the local impacts of climate change. Dynamical downscaling of global climate models is

a way of providing detailed information of the local variations and impacts of projected

changes. The Climate Futures for Tasmania project uses CSIRO’s Conformal Cubic




Atmospheric Model (CCAM) to dynamically downscale IPCC global climate model outputs to

produce fine-scale climate projections for Tasmania to 2100.

The Climate Futures for Tasmania presents a set of six model simulations dynamically

downscaled for Tasmania under two IPCC emission scenarios: one high (A2) and one low

(B1). A single model simulation gives a single projection of a climate scenario, analogous to a

single iteration of an experiment. More model simulations give further realisations of that

experiment and this helps to give an estimate of the range of possible outcomes for a given

emission scenario and to quantify the spread of the projected climate. For this reason, the

project has undertaken the maximum number of model simulations that computation time

allowed: the downscaling of six Global Climate Models (CSIRO-Mk3.5, GFDL-CM2.0, GFDL-

CM2.1, MPI/ECHAM5, UKMO-HadCM3 and MIROC3.2(medres)) for both the A2 and B1

scenarios. These six simulations were chosen for their performance in simulating the

Australian region (see Corney et al. (2010) for more detail). The benefit of multi-model

ensemble simulations is that they generally provide more robust information than simulations

from any single model (IPCC, 2007). Since the main focus in this special synopsis is the

change to the mean state of the general climate, the focus will be on the ensemble of these

models rather than any one particular simulation.

Climate Futures for Tasmania is a jointly funded, collaborative research project that has

generated improved climate change information for Tasmania out to 2100. It is a project of

the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC), supported by

funds from the Tasmanian State Government, the Federal Government and Hydro Tasmania,

and in-kind research from CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research; Hydro

Tasmania; Department of Primary Industries, Parks Water and the Environment (Tasmanian

Government); University of Tasmania, through the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced

Computing (TPAC) and the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR); Geoscience

Australia; and the Bureau of Meteorology.

3.2 Using the climate projections

Tasmania is unusual in its global perspective with regard to climate change. It lies on the

border between two regions: one region to the north where most global climate models show

a drying trend and one region to the south where most show a wetting trend. These factors

make Tasmania a difficult region to project climate change using just global climate models.

Furthermore, Tasmania’s topography is highly variable, resulting in a spatially varied climate

across the island, ranging from an annual precipitation of 500 mm on the drier east coast to

more than 3000 mm on the mountainous west coast. This level of spatial variability cannot

be simulated in global climate models.

The dynamical downscaling of global climate models for Tasmania is a way of incorporating

the uniqueness of Tasmania’s complex topography and maritime influenced climate to

provide a clearer picture of regional variations and impacts of projected climate change.




However, the models are not perfect. They do not, and cannot, simulate every aspect of the

climate of Tasmania. However, climate models can reproduce the central aspects of the

patterns of variability and the weather system that describes the overall climate and as such,

they are our best tool for assessing potential changes in the future climate. The downscaled

models have demonstrated a high level of skill in reproducing the recent climate of Tasmania

across a range of climate variables. This gives us confidence that the models are able to

provide realistic projections of the Tasmanian climate out to 2100.

3.3 Future projections relevant to bushfire weather

Through the Climate Futures for Tasmania project, numerous analyses have been undertaken

that assess the likely future changes to several climate variables that are relevant to the

calculation of bushfire weather. These include temperature, wind speed, relative humidity,

pressure, precipitation and soil moisture. Although a direct calculation of future bushfire risk

has not been undertaken as part of the Climate Futures for Tasmania project (e.g. FFDI), the

following preliminary results may be used to infer possible future changes to bushfire risk in

Tasmania. What is clear from these results is the requirement for a full bushfire risk analysis

in a future changing climate.

3.3.1 Temperature

Under the high IPCC emission scenario (A2), the average temperature change over Tasmania

is projected to be 2.9 °C over the 21st century. The six models used show a range of

temperature rise from 2.6 °C to 3.3 °C. The projections suggest temperature increases are

smaller in the early part of the century, but the rate of change accelerates towards the end of

the century (Figure 7). The spatial pattern of temperature rise is quite uniform across

Tasmania, with a different pattern emerging in the different seasons (Figure 8). Under the

low IPCC emission scenario (B1), the projections for temperature suggest an average rise of

1.6 °C. The six models used show a range of temperature rise for the B1 scenario from

1.3 °C to 2.0 °C. Both the IPCC scenarios give a similar climate response for the first half of

the century and the difference between the scenarios becomes noticeable around the middle

of the century. After 2070, the spread of the six A2 simulations is higher than the spread of

the six B1 simulations (Figure 7).




Figure 7. Projected mean temperature anomalies to 2100 relative to the 1961-1990 baseline.

Smoothed time series (11-year running mean) of Tasmanian mean daily mean temperature in

model projections under two emission scenarios, A2 (red) and B1 (blue) IPCC SRES

(Nakicenovic, 2000) compared with observed temperature for the past century (black line)

Bureau of Meteorology high quality temperature dataset (Torok et al., 1996; Della-Martin et al.,

2004). Dark lines represent the mean of six models; shading represents the 6-model range

(derived from Grose et al., 2010 and White et al., 2010).

Figure 8. Projected changes in mean temperature to 2100 (high emission scenario). Projected

change in mean temperature for the IPCC high emission scenario (A2) between the periods

1988-1999 and 2090-2099, representing the projected change over the 21st century. The plots




represent the mean of the 6-model projections calculated on an annual basis and for each

calendar season (derived from Grose et al., 2010).

3.3.2 Precipitation

The projection of total annual precipitation over the whole of Tasmania under either

emissions scenario shows no significant change. However, there are significant changes in

the spatial pattern of precipitation, and in the timing of precipitation. Under the high IPCC

emission scenario (A2), the annual average precipitation shows a steadily emerging pattern

of increased precipitation over most of the coastal regions, and no change or reduced

precipitation over central Tasmania and in some areas of northwest Tasmania (Figure 9).

The changes in seasonal precipitation are much stronger than annual total precipitation. The

west coast of Tasmania shows a pattern of strong increase in precipitation in winter and a

strong decrease in summer precipitation. The central plateau district shows a steady decrease

in precipitation in every season, and a narrow strip down the east coast shows a steady

increase in autumn and summer precipitation throughout the 21st century.

Figure 9. Projected changes in precipitation to 2100 (high emission scenario). Projected

proportional (%) change in total precipitation for the IPCC high emission scenario (A2) between the

periods 1988-1999 and 2090-2099, representing the change over the 21st century. The plots

represent the mean of six model projections calculated on an annual basis and for each calendar

season (derived from Grose et al., 2010).

Preliminary results suggest that climate change will also significantly affect Tasmania through

changes to extreme precipitation events. Figure 10 shows projected increases in extreme

precipitation events (here represented by the average number of days per annum exceeding




the baseline 99th percentile) and increases in the maximum number of consecutive dry days

(<1 mm) by the end of the 21st Century (2070-2099) across many parts of Tasmania. This

suggests a combined change where more heavy precipitation events are interspersed with

longer, dryer periods which may lead to increased growth in bushfire fuels. This projected

change is particularly apparent in the western regions of the state.

These projected changes to precipitation are caused by systematic changes to the large-scale

climate features within the model simulations. These changes in the climate include a change

to the dominant pressure patterns and winds over the region as well as a change to the sea

surface temperature in the surrounding seas. Changes to the dominant pressure patterns are

associated with a southerly movement and intensification of the subtropical ridge of high

pressure, especially in summer, and an increasing prevalence of the high phase of the

Southern Annular Mode, resulting in changes to the dominant westerlies winds reaching

Tasmania. These changes are likely to enhance the seasonality of west coast precipitation,

that is, drier in summer and autumn and wetter in winter and spring.

Figure 10. Projected changes in extreme precipitation (high emission scenario A2). Projected

proportional (%) change in annual count of days exceeding the 1961-1990 99th percentile

(left panel), and the maximum number of consecutive dry days (<1 mm) per annum (right

panel), for 2070-2099 relative to 1961-1990. The plots represent the mean of the six model

projections (derived from White et al., 2010).

3.3.3 Relative humidity

Annual average relative humidity under the A2 scenario is projected to increase over much of

Tasmania by 0.5% to 1.5%, except for the Central Highland region where a slight decrease is




projected (Figure 11a and 11b). There is a different spatial pattern of change in summer

compared to winter (Figure 11d).

Figure 11. Projected changes in mean relative humidity, a) time series of 11-year moving average relative humidity

over the land surface of Tasmania in the six-model-mean and the range of models (highest and lowest); b) the

difference in mean relative humidity between the periods 1 (1978-2007) and 2 (2070-2099); c) mean annual cycle

of relative humidity in periods 1 and 2; d) as for b) but for the calendar seasons summer and winter (derived from

Grose et al., 2010).

3.3.4 Wind speed

Change to the average 10-metre wind speed over the land surface of Tasmania under the A2

scenario shows a slight decline (<5%) by the end of the century (Figure 12a). The six-model-

mean pattern of change is spatially varied and there are large differences between the spatial

patterns of change in the six models (Figure 12c and 12d). A change in seasonality of mean

wind speed however is more apparent, with higher speeds in July to October and lower wind

speeds in November through to May (Figure 12b). Further in-depth analysis of wind speed,

wind gusts and wind hazards is included in the severe wind report as part of the Climate

Futures for Tasmania project (Cechet et al., 2010).




Figure 12. Projected changes in mean 10-metre wind speed, a) 11-year moving average time series of annual 10

m wind speed over the land surface of Tasmania in the six-model-mean and the range of models (highest and

lowest); b) mean annual cycle for Tasmania in the periods 1 (1978-2007) and 2 (2070-2099); c) the six-model-

mean difference between periods 1 and 2; d), difference between periods 1 and 2 for each downscaled model

(same colour scale as for 6.16c) (derived from Grose et al., 2010).

3.3.5 Evaporation

The projected increase in temperature over the 21st century is the dominant driver of a

significant projected increase in potential evaporation across all four seasons. This is likely to

decrease water availability. Preliminary analyses indicate that evaporation will generally

increase across the state, although these increases are spatially varied. Because different

measures of evaporation can differ markedly, future researchers using the modelling outputs

and projections may need to derive their own measure of evaporation to best suit their

applications.

3.3.6 Soil moisture and water availability

The projected increases in CO2 concentrations may increase the water use efficiency of

vegetation and potentially reduce the demand on soil water reserves. This means that soil

water contents may conversely remain higher for longer into periods of low precipitation than




might be expected as temperatures and evaporation increase. The impact of these changes is

as yet not quantified but may actually act to ameliorate bush fire danger ratings in some

regions. Biophysical models could be used to provide future projections of soil water contents.

3.3.7 Synoptic bushfire weather patterns

Particular synoptic weather patterns drive conditions of high fire danger. Mills (2005)

identifies a specific pattern that has been present in a large proportion of extreme fire events

in Tasmania, including the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires. This pattern is a particularly strong

and deep cold front that creates unusually hot and strong winds from the mainland of

Australia over the state.

This pattern can be identified by high temperatures and a strong thermal gradient at the 850

hPa height. This pattern can be identified and characterized in NCEP Reanalysis and in fine

scale climate model simulations. A preliminary examination of the Climate Futures for

Tasmania downscaled model projections reveals that they simulate the incidence of this

synoptic type reasonably closely to NCEP Reanalysis for the recent period. The model

simulations also project an increase of the incidence of this driver over the 21st Century

(Figure 13), with a large range indicated by the six different models examined. The model

mean is considered the best estimate for examining this change, and shows a 17% increase

by the middle of the century, and a 50% increase in incidence by the end of the century for a

high emission scenario (A2) of climate change.

Figure 13. Model mean number of extreme fire weather events in three periods (past period

and two future) modelled from six GCMs downscaled through CCAM (preliminary results).

Grey lined signifies range of the models for each period.




3.4 Research directions

Fire danger is sensitively dependent on a number of related parameters. The projections

developed in the Climate Futures for Tasmania modelling hint at changes in the mean values

of these parameters that will impact on fire danger. In addition, the modelling has suggested

an increase in the frequency of synoptic patterns conducive to dangerous fire weather events.

The results to date indicate a need for further research, to more clearly identify trends in fire

danger and the broader area of bushfire risk. A project proposal has been developed to

extend the work of the Climate Futures for Tasmania team with a goal of examining in detail

projections of factors likely to impact on the occurrence of bushfires. Indices of fire danger

will be examined, as will changes in the frequency of synoptic weather conditions conducive

to the spread of bushfires. Other factors likely to affect bushfire activity and risk of ignition

will also be studied, including frequency of lightning risk levels and projections of change in

fuel load across the Tasmanian landscape.




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