Atmospheric rivers as mediators between climate teleconnections and burned area variability in North America
Abstract
This study identifies atmospheric rivers (ARs) as key mediators linking large-scale climate teleconnections, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific-North American pattern (PNA), and Arctic Oscillation (AO), to variations in vegetation activity (NDVI) and burned area (BA) across North America. The results highlight the central role of ARs in shaping regional fire regimes and improving prospects for seasonal fire prediction. Distinct spatial and lag-dependent responses emerge: ENSO-driven precipitation promotes vegetation greening in northwestern Canada at longer lags, whereas browning dominates Alaska and northeastern Canada. The PNA exerts a dominant influence, suppressing NDVI across the eastern United States and central Canada at longer lags, while promoting greening in Alaska at shorter ones. AO effects often counter those of ENSO, driving vegetation drying in the southern United States and southwestern Canada at short lags, and in central Canada and Alaska at longer timescales. ARs exert a strong control over burned area, particularly across northern Canada and Alaska. When AR variability is incorporated, much of the fire enhancement previously attributed to teleconnection phases is reversed, indicating that AR-teleconnection interactions play a pivotal role in modulating the timing and magnitude of vegetation and fire responses across North America.
Data availability
Code to replicate these analyses are available at the Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17860684. The SLP, U10, V10 and T2m used here are public available at the ERA5 website https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/datasets/reanalysis-era5-single-levels-monthly-means?tab=overview. Atmospheric rivers frequency and precipitation are available at UCLA website https://ucla.app.box.com/v/arcatalog/.
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Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the funding support of Simon Foundation for visiting the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. The CNPq funding 441744/2024-9 and 303882/2020, and the BPCRC Polar Meteorology Development Fund. Dr. Bin Guan provided the AR code.
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F.J., D.H.B., and C.G. designed the study. C.G. performed data processing and plotting, and F.J. and D.H.B. wrote a large portion of the manuscript.
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Justino, F., Bromwich, D.H. & Gurjão, C. Atmospheric rivers as mediators between climate teleconnections and burned area variability in North America. Commun Earth Environ (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03124-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03124-0