2023-08-24 06:30:43
Forest fires have been raging in Canada since May, starting in the east of the country. Almost six thousand fires have been reported across millions of hectares, and people have died. Tens of thousands have had to be brought to safety, the air all the way to New York was at times saturated with acrid gas, soot and toxic particles. In the meantime, more than 350 million tons of carbon have literally gone up in the air in the form of carbon dioxide – more than twice as much as in the entire previous record year 2014 and about as much as Austria emitted together in 17 years. The climate catastrophe monster, it seems, is feeding on itself. And it’s not over yet.
Joachim Müller-Jung
Editor in the feuilleton, responsible for the “Nature and Science” department.
Nearly a thousand fires are still burning simultaneously across Canada every day, buildings are destroyed and thousands upon thousands are evacuated every day. Even before the end of this black Canadian summer, however, one thing is clear: this horror had many reasons, many human fire devils too, but above all it had a strong driver: the fire accelerator is man-made climate change. In a new study by the World Weather Attribution Initiative (WWA), man-made global warming, like the country’s recent heatwave – and many of the recent heatwaves in other regions of the world – have been identified as a key factor in the fire series. More specifically, global climate change has more than doubled the likelihood of external conditions allowing wildfires as severe as those in eastern Canada.
The vegetation, drought, the unusual heat, the winds – all of this taken together has changed so much as a result of climate change that the risk of a fire series has increased by a fifth, as it did over the entire period from May to July examined. By late July, the time of worst-case “fire weather,” the intensity was increased by 50 percent compared to a hypothetical climate with no anthropogenic warming. And by that time, the odds of monster fires like those observed had increased sevenfold.
These are all statistical evaluations and results of climate modelling, which are worked out in an almost criminalistic way by attribution research – translated: attribution research – by including as much observation data and historical records for the respective region and season. The Study by the international WWA research team under the direction of the German climatologist Fredi Otto is freely accessible, as are all of the dozens of classification studies that have been carried out on heat waves alone.
Michael Martens, Vienna Published/Updated: Recommendations: 9 Published/Updated: Published/Updated:
It was remarkable for the scientists to see how clearly the climate models underestimate the observed changes caused by climate change. Climate change is having a greater impact in the northern region than had already been feared based on climate calculations. The results of the study also include an outlook into the future, which is also estimated using climate models. And, as might be expected, fire conditions are likely to gradually worsen in a warmer world.
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