Saturday, August 03, 2024

Climate change: Wildfires rage across North America


ByDr. Tim Sandle
August 3, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL


A firefighter works to extinguish a wildfire in Keratea, near Athens, on the weekend - Copyright AFP CLARENS SIFFROY

More than 100 wildfires are burning across Canada and the U.S., the largest of which is located in California. Dubbed the Park Fire, this fire has burned more than 385,000 acres, or about 601 square miles (an area slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles).

The present situation sees the fire having destroyed 109 structures and it is only 12 percent contained. More than 8,000 have been told to evacuate their homes, according to the BBC.

According to Paige Fischer, associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability (University of Michigan): “This summer’s wildfires are consistent with the trend scientists have expected and the public has experienced in recent years—wildfires are becoming more damaging, and in many places, they are occurring with greater frequency, magnitude and severity.”

Fischer conducts research on how people experience and perceive wildfire risk, as well as what motivates and constrains them in taking action to reduce risk. She also examines how people adapt to long-term changes in climate conditions that drive wildfire risk.

This leads to her focusing on the impact on people: “Beyond the existential crisis that wildfires pose to neighbourhoods and communities in the wildland-urban interface, we should be extremely concerned about wildfire impact that is most difficult to control: toxic smoke. We are just beginning to understand how bad wildfire smoke is for human health and how many people are exposed, especially from vulnerable populations.”

A second commentator from the same institution is Jonathan Overpeck, an interdisciplinary climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability.

Considering the climate impact, Overpack notes: “The current North American wildfire season is surging across the western U.S. and Canada, made worse by the warming and drying effects of human-caused climate change. As climate change worsens, so too does the risk of ever larger and more severe wildfires.”

Overpack is an expert on climate and weather extremes, sea-level rise, and the impacts of climate change and options for dealing with it. He served as a lead author on the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 and 2014 reports.

Expanding on the climate change issues further, the researcher says: “The growing wildfire crisis is also leading to significant declines in air quality, including far from the wildfires themselves, as well as often devastating consequences for human infrastructure and communities where fires are occurring. Erosion, landslides and water contamination are also becoming larger problems as climate change-supercharged wildfire seasons continue to get worse.”

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