• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Heat recedes from wildfires fears

May 29, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Scientists have been warning that wildfires could be exacerbated by global warming, but new research indicates that this is not an immediate threat.

LONDON, 29 May, 2016 – Despite extremes of heat, extended drought and greater hazards from human carelessness, wildfire is not on the increase.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

Two separate studies, in two journals, using different ways to assess the evidence, conclude that the area of scrub, forest or grassland burned to cinders every year is more or less the same, or may even be getting smaller.

This finding is counter-intuitive: other researchers have warned – and warned more than once – that global warming could exacerbate the conditions for wildifire, the damage caused by them, and perhaps their intensity.

And both sets of researchers began to arrive at their similar conclusions as the news media reported blazes that smouldered in California, Indonesia and Canada.

Changing patterns

Stefan Doerr and Cristina Santin, geographers at Swansea University, Wales, report in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B that they looked at records of charcoal in sediments and isotope evidence in ice cores to make an estimate of the changing patterns over the last 40 years or so – and, indeed, the more distant past.

They did not find evidence that global warming has – at least, for the moment – started to set the world alight.

“Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago,” they conclude.

They also look at the historical evidence for the dangers of wildfire. Between 1901 and 1914, floods claimed 7 million lives and earthquakes 2.5 million, but wildfires, killed only 3,753, according to the UN’s disaster database.

“In large parts of the world, the total area burned did not increase but decrease in the last century”

The two scientists calculate that around 4% of the world’s land surface is charred by fire every year. They point out that some landscapes are adapted to periodic fire, and burning itself is a natural part of the ecosystem.

They do not claim that fire will not become an increasing hazard. Humans are changing the natural landscape, and that creates its own dangers.

“The warming climate, which is predicted to result in more severe fire weather in many regions of the globe in this century, will probably contribute further to both perceived and actual risks to lives, health and infrastructure,” they write.

Almut Arneth, a scientist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and colleagues report in Nature Climate Change that wildfires worldwide devastate an area the size of India every year. The scientists – from Sweden and the US, as well as Germany – used satellite imagery and computer simulations and came to much the same conclusion: wildfire may be an increasing danger, but not yet.

Population density

“So far, we have thought that climate change increases the number of wildfires,” Professor Arneth says. “In large parts of the world, the total area burned did not increase but decrease in the last century.”

The resolution of this paradox could lie in population growth: humans in ever greater numbers are colonising, exploiting and fragmenting the forests and scrublands that might otherwise periodically burn. The number of fires may decrease as population density increases.

But, again, that doesn’t mean that people will be safer in the future. Greater human numbers mean that more people will be increasingly at hazard from wildfire. More and more people are crowding into the cities, abandoning land that may become increasingly susceptible to fire.

“In the future warmer and frequently drier world, the risk of fires will further increase,” Professor Arneth says. “This increases the risk of damage to people.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
34
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
50
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
578
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
137
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
364
icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
177
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Tesla App Mishap, Saudi Arabia Fights the IPCC, Fossil Industry Fights for its Life, Alberta Premier Wants More Gas Plants, and Carbon-Eating Fungi Could Feed Millions

March 29, 2023
56
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
58

Recent Posts

UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
32
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
86
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
337
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
999
U.S. National Park Service/rawpixel

Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns

March 20, 2023
97
Next Post

IKEA Will Be Net Renewables Exporter by 2020 (Some Assembly Required)

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}