Ponente
Descripción
As the frequency and intensity of large forest fires continue to increase in the western North America, so do the costs of firefighting, health burdens, life and property losses. Smoke forecasting and early warning are effective tools to mitigate the harmful effects of wildfires and associated air pollution. This work presents a new international initiative, the North America Centre of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Vegetation Fire and Smoke Pollution Warning Advisory and Assessment System (VFSP-WAS), as an effort to improve our collective wildfire forecast capability and communication. VFSP-WAS was initiated by WMO, at the request of its members in several regional impacted by wildfires, to provide guidance and expert recommendations to address local needs and enhance data access to end users (web-site: https://community.wmo.int/activity-areas/gaw/science/modelling-applications/vfsp-was). As the second node of VFSP-WAS, the North American Centre aims at building a network of operational and research centers, such as Environment Canada and Climate Change (ECCCC) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to provide wildfire related information to users in Canada, United States, and Mexico. VFSP-WAS leverages and facilitates collaborations among existing forecasting and observation programs to collect, enhance, share, and disseminate data of wildfire emissions, forecasts, and satellite observations. We will present the research and development work plan of the VFSP-WAS NA Centre, along with the high-priority research areas identified by the Steering Committee to improve wildfire forecast capabilities. A high-level summary of ongoing VFSP-WAS activities, including ensemble forecasting and multi-model intercomparison, will be discussed. Finally, we will provide information on how researchers and users can participate in this new exciting program, such as interacting with regional centers and joining VFSP-WAS NA Workgroups in the areas of wildfire emissions, ensemble forecast, verification, wildfire risk forecast, observations and detection, Arctic and other issues.
