The climate crisis sets the world on fire and no one is safe anymore
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Floods and fires they have become, alas, the order of the day in newspaper and television news. It’s not that hard to still meet someone who still thinks that the climate change is not caused by carbon dioxide emissions related to human activity. For this reason it is important to clarify that the issue still requires considerable work to understand what are the links between individual extreme events and climate change in general. This is not only a purely scientific exercise but also a necessity linked to the economic and financial impact of climate change, as shown by the State Farm insurance company throwing in the towel on fire policies in California. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies (PNAS). Here, the authors show how the recent decade-long spate of catastrophic wildfires in California is due to climate change.
THE MAP Fires around the world in real time
Scientists say that in addition to fueling extreme weather events such as floods and hurricanesClimate change has also affected the extent and severity of fire seasons in the United States. “We show that nearly all of the observed increase in burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to human-caused climate change,” he said. Don Lucasone of the study authors and a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.
Over the past five years, wildfires have burned more than 38 million acres across the country, destroying thousands of homes and structures, making western and Alaskan forests drier, fueling wildfires.
Some of the key “ingredients” linking wildfire risk to climate change outlined in the study include:
- below average rainfall;
- higher temperatures in the spring months;
- spring snow cover less often;
- higher summer temperatures;
- more frequent temperature extremes;
- a decrease in the number of rainy days during the fire season.
In Northern California in 2021, for example, the Dixie Fire it became the largest fire in history, burning about 1 million acres – the equivalent of a third of Campania’s land area – and more than 700 homes.
Scientists show how the amount of average summer area burned by wildfires literally “exploded” in California in recent decades and increased five-fold between 1996 and 2021 compared to the period between 1971 and 1995says the study.
Also, according to the study, “California’s 10 largest wildfires all occurred within the last 20 yearsfive of which occurred in 2020 and eight after 2017. In addition to their immense environmental impacts, these fires have also had widespread adverse impacts on human health and mortality, and numerous socio-economic consequences.”
The past few weeks have seen New York City bend to the will of the winds as they pour the fumes of Canadian bushfires over the city and show that no one is safe, not even big rich climate fortresses like New York.
The research team, led by Marco Turco of the University of Murcia in Spain, used computer models to model the aspects of climate responsible for summer fire activity in California, considering both natural causes and those associated with human activity. The team found that since 2001, the causes of the increase in burned area in summer are all due to climate change, with no natural factors involved.
The authors also estimated that the next few decades, between 2031 and 2050, could see an increase in California’s average summer burned area of up to 52 percent over the current average burned area. A positive factor – if we want to define it that way – is that repeated fires in the same areas consume “fuel”, limiting the activity of subsequent fires in the same area.
The study concludes, “…Immediate action will be needed to mitigate the impacts of global warming along with intentional proactive land management practices that can improve the woodland landscape’s resilience to wildfires“.
Amir AghaKouchak, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine, concludes: “Our paper makes it clear that it is up to us to fix the problem and that we can take steps to help fix it. Acting now to reduce our carbon footprint and by pursuing more sustainable transportation, energy production and agricultural practices, we can reduce the negative effects of global climate change.” Meanwhile the future is here.
(*Marco Tedesco is a climate scientist and glaciologist at the Lamont – Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
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