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A new study calculates that human-caused climate change doubled the likelihood of the tinderbox weather conditions that sparked Canada’s massive summer wildfires, which sent smoke everywhere and raised the ire of some politicians.
Fire and climate scientists said some politicians, who have talked about punishing Canada for poor fire management, should look more in the mirror than up north when it comes to blame, given the United States’ huge historical emissions of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil, and gas.
The fire weather conditions in Northwest Territories and northwestern Ontario, while unusual, weren’t that rare, but still were made twice as likely by global warming, according to a study by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who examine extreme weather conditions to see if there are climate change fingerprints. It’s about the same as the team found for summer fires in France, but not nearly as clear a climate fingerprint as they calculated in Spanish fires, which the scientists said were 20 times more likely because of climate change.
The study, which was done so quickly that it has not been peer-reviewed yet, looked at the weather conditions that are connected to large wildfires and the Canadian index for those conditions, which are heat, lack of rain, humidity, and wind. The researchers found the doubling of frequency when—using scientifically accepted techniques to search for climate fingerprints—they compared current conditions to a world without the 2.5 degrees (1.4 °C) of warming that’s occurred since the industrial age and the burning of fossil fuels started. The weeklong weather conditions that led to the fires in Ontario are now the type that can happen every six years or so, the report said.
“In a pre-industrial climate, this would have been much less likely to occur, maybe once in a lifespan. So, climate change has made those events more likely,” said study co-author Jonathan Boucher, a fire scientist at the Canadian Forest Service.
Outside climate and fire scientists said the flash study made sense and reflects a world where hotter and drier conditions are making fires burn more often and more intensely.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.