Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures and their relation to Area Burned in Canada

We explore the relationship between Pacific Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and both the fire weather and area burned in Canada during the period 1953-1995. Average monthly and seasonal SSTs from the Pacific Ocean were correlated with mean and the 90th percentile values of indexes from the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System for stations across Canada.. Additionally, average monthly and seasonal SSTs were correlated with monthly and seasonal provincial area-burned for Canada. We used lagged data in our analysis to investigate whether SSTs could be used in a predictive fashion. All analyses were segregated according to the North Pacific Oscillation phase, which meant for our study we had two periods 1953-1976 and 1977-1995. We anticipate that the fire weather and area burned are significantly correlated with SSTs. Preliminary correlation results show a spatial coherency with specific regions of the Pacific being negatively or positively correlated with area burned. Lastly, the results suggest that SSTs could be used to estimate fire weather and area burned a couple of months in advance.