Politifact How Climate Change Is Making Wildfires Worse

In this aerial image, an aircraft, center, flies near a wildfire burning near Barrington Lake in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP) With Canada facing one of its worst wildfire seasons in history and smoke from the fires blanketing parts of the United States, some have questioned the notion that climate change is to blame. But climatologists and wildfire experts say there is no question about the link, which is supported by years of research. Extensive research has analyzed human-caused climate change’s effect on wildfires, and the consensus is that climate change is making wildfires more frequent, severe and long-lasting. Canada is no stranger to wildfires, but this year’s activity has been unusually destructive, experts say.

As of June 8, the U.S.’ northern neighbor had 431 active fires burning, 235 of them considered to be out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Most of the active fires are in the province of Quebec. The wildfires have burned more than 9 million acres in Canada so far this year, which is nearly 12 times the 10-year average, the Canadian government reported. At least 20,000 people in Canada have been displaced, and millions more in Canada and the U.S. have been affected by smoke polluting the air. Fire crews battle the Kenneth Fire on Jan.

9, 2025, in Los Angeles’ West Hills section. (AP) Donald Trump Jr. said "bad policy and incompetence" — not the planet’s changing temperatures — are to blame in the Los Angeles wildfires. "So we are abundantly clear it has nothing to do with climate change or Donald Trump," Trump Jr. wrote in a Jan.

14 Instagram post, which included a clip from the business and tech podcast "All-In." PolitiFact asked Trump Jr., President Donald Trump’s eldest child, for evidence behind his claim. We reached out through his website and contacted the Trump Organization, for which Trump Jr. is executive vice president. We received no reply. Climate scientists PolitiFact spoke to disagreed with Trump Jr.

and said climate change contributed to the Los Angeles fires’ size and destructiveness. Numerous studies have linked human-caused climate change to the western U.S.’ worsening wildfires. A warming climate with dry forests and shifting weather patterns is fueling severe wildfires with unprecedented impacts. There’s still time to act. Whether it’s through enduring unhealthy air from extreme wildfire events or experiencing those fires directly, hundreds of millions of people around the world are now affected every year by intensifying wildfires. While fire is an essential, natural process that has shaped the world’s landscapes for millions of years, extreme wildfires are becoming more frequent, severe, and extensive.

The evidence connecting the climate crisis and extreme wildfires is clear. Increased global temperatures and reduced moisture lead to drier conditions and extended fire seasons. Prolonged heatwaves can take what was once a natural event in the fire-cycle process and supercharge it into a maelstrom that devastates entire communities. And, crucially, worsening wildfires mean larger amounts of stored carbon are released into the atmosphere, further worsening climate change. Given the mounting impacts associated with extreme wildfires, we need urgent action. There are clear steps we can take but we must take them now.

Multiple studies show that climate change is creating warmer, drier conditions that cause fire seasons in some regions like western North America to last longer and be more active. One way scientists know some of the world’s forests are getting drier and more susceptible to burning is by looking at vapor pressure deficit. VPD is like relative humidity but calculated with temperature. It’s the difference between the amount of moisture in the air and the amount of moisture that the air could hold if it was saturated. As an area’s VPD increases, so do the risks of wildfire. The consensus among climatologists and wildfire researchers is that human-caused climate change is a key factor in why wildfires are becoming more frequent, severe and long-lasting.

snow accumulation, referred to as"snowpack," meaning trees and plants receive less water later as snow melts. This leads to drier trees and plants, which in turn fuel wildfires. Reduced snowpack and faster snow melts mean more intense and longer-lasting fires the following summer, Kelly Gleason, a Portland State University snow hydrologist and assistant professor, said in NASA’s 2019"It creates this vicious cycle... This further accelerates snowmelt, further extending the summer drought period and fire potential," Gleason said.Although wildfires can occur any time of the year, they most often happen in late spring and summer, when the... But as the planet warms year-round due to climate change, wildfire season has become lengthier and more intense.by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the length of fire weather season has... In Australia, the frequency of wildfires has doubled since 1980.

And in the western U.S., wildfire severity, or the degree of ecosystem impacts caused by a fire, was eight times higher in 2017 than it was in 1985, according to the report. Climate change is a"key driver" behind the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires, the report said., published in 2016 by University of Idaho and Columbia University professors, also found evidence of human-caused climate change... Researchers found that from 1984 to 2015, climate change caused increases in warmer, drier weather that turned trees into tinder. This led to forest fires burning an additional 4.2 million hectares, or more than 10.3 million acres, of land. This is nearly double the amount of land that was expected to be affected by forest fires from natural climate variability alone.that there was"clear evidence" the effects of climate change had resulted in not... "Heat waves and wildfire risk will continue to become more intense and more frequent as long as the world burns fossil fuels," said Kasoar, of Imperial College London."As we’re seeing with the current fires...

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources. PolitiFact - Video of planned ignitions in Canada isn’t evidence the wildfires there were plannedVideo circulating on social media is being framed as evidence the recent wildfires in Canada were planned. That’s wrong. Footage of so-called planned ignitions show a strategy to combat wildfires, not start them. Read more » A wildfire burns on the mountainside in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.

Summer headlines have screamed of climate extremes: Record temperatures, an ocean heat wave, and rampant wildfires, including Canadian blazes that have funneled dense smoke into major U.S. cities. For Loretta Mickley, a Harvard wildfire expert, the fires present a dual problem: Not only are they a symptom of climate change — becoming bigger, hotter, and more common in regions where they can... By burning vast layers of partially decomposed vegetable matter called peat, fires like those in Canada release even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Gazette spoke with Mickley, who will chair a National Academies workshop next month on wildfires as a driver of greenhouse gases, about the science behind the threat. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

GAZETTE: How do we expect wildfires to change in the decades to come?

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