The typical start of fire season in California has shifted earlier by an average of more than one day every year in most of the state since the early 1990s, and up to a total change of month and half earlier in some areas, a trend driven by human-caused climate change, according to a UCLA study published in the journal Science Advances.
The typical start of fire season in California has shifted earlier by an average of more than one day every year in most of the state since the early 1990s, and up to a total change of month and half earlier in some areas, a trend driven by human-caused climate change, according to a UCLA study published in the journal Science Advances.
This trend — even more pronounced in California’s higher-elevation mountains and northern forests, where fire season has expanded by an average of two days every year in the same period — likely will continue as climate change continues to warm the planet, according to the study, which was made possible with support from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. In parts of California over the last 30 years, warming has pushed the wildfire season anywhere from a week to almost seven weeks earlier.
“These findings underscore the very real impact climate change has on people’s lives and livelihoods,” said Alex Hall, a co-author of the report and director of both the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, or IoES.
Read More: University of California Los Angeles
The start of wildfire season across the state is beginning earlier, and is even more pronounced in California’s higher-elevation mountains and northern forests. (Photo Credit: Robert Giovannetti/Bureau of Land Management via Flickr)
