Human-driven climate change made wildfires in parts of South America and Southern California many times larger and more destructive, according to an annual assessment by international experts.
Human-driven climate change made wildfires in parts of South America and Southern California many times larger and more destructive, according to an annual assessment by international experts.
According to climate models, the Los Angeles wildfires in January were twice as likely and 25 times larger, in terms of burned area, in the current climate than they would have been in a world with no human-caused global warming. It also made last year’s burning in the Pantanal-Chiquitano region in South America 35 times larger, while also driving record-breaking fires in the Amazon and Congo.
However, it is still too early to tell how much climate change contributed to the impacts of the wildfires.
Read more at: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Firefighters in action in the Pantanal in July 2024. (Photo Credit: Marinha do Brasil CC BY-SA 2.0)
