Attribution of the Influence of Human-Induced Climate Change on an Extreme Fire Season.

ABSTRACT: A record 1.2 million ha burned in British Columbia, Canada's extreme wildfire season of 2017. Key factors in this unprecedented event were the extreme warm and dry conditions that prevailed at the time, which are also reflected in extreme fire weather and behavior metrics. Using an event attribution method and a large ensemble of regional climate model simulations, we show that the risk factors affecting the event, and the area burned itself, were made substantially greater by anthropogenic climate change. We show over 95% of the probability for the observed maximum temperature anomalies is due to anthropogenic factors, that the event's high fire weather/behavior metrics were made 2-4 times more likely, and that anthropogenic climate change increased the area burned by a factor of 7-11. Th

SUBMITTER: Kirchmeier-Young MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9285568 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature