Climate Change Affected Australia’s Wildfires, Scientists Confirm

Confirming what had been widely suspected, researchers have found that human-caused climate change had an impact on Australia’s recent devastating wildfires, making the extremely high-risk conditions that led to widespread burning at least 30 percent more likely than in a world without global warming.

The researchers said the full influence of climate change on the fires was probably much greater, but that climate simulations, which form the basis of this type of study, underestimate trends in extreme heat in Australia compared with real-world observational data.

“We’re very sure that is a definite number we can scientifically defend,” said the lead author of the study, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute,referring to the 30 percent figure.

But the real influence of climate change on the recent fire season in Australia is greater, he added. “We think it is much larger than that, but we can’t prove that until we find out why there is this discrepancy between the observations and the climate models.”

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