Climate change has doubled the chance of weather fueling wildfires in Canada: scientists

The chance of the dry, hot weather currently fueling extreme wildfires in Canada has at least doubled due to climate change. That is the conclusion drawn by an international group of climate scientists in an analysis. This type of fire-hazardous weather is no longer a rarity, the researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom made clear in their publication.

Wildfires hit Canada every year, but never before has such a huge area been destroyed as this year. Almost 14 million hectares have already gone up in flames. That is a larger area than the entire land area of Greece, the researchers said. It is almost double the previous record, dating from 1989. About 200,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in eastern Canada.

The climate scientists associated with the World Weather Attribution project have calculated how much the unprecedented fires are related to global warming. They found a strong connection and warned that the incendiary weather, which is a significant contributor to the fires, is becoming more common. The probability of this type of weather event occurring in Eastern Canada is about 4 percent in the current climate. That means that these circumstances occur on average once every 25 years.

The researchers used the wildfire index, which combines the temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation to estimate the probability of wildfires. The peak they measured between May and July was about 20 percent higher than it would have been without climate change. The chance of such a peak is at least twice as high in the current climate.

Viewed over a period of six months, the effect of climate change is much greater than when explicitly looking at the peak. The researchers write that the weather conditions that presented such a high fire risk in the first half of 2023 have become at least seven times more likely due to global warming. For the sake of completeness, they once again point out that burning fossil fuels is the leading cause of global warming. As global temperatures continue to rise, forest fire risks continue to increase.

Seventeen researchers participated in the analysis. They are affiliated with the KNMI, Imperial College in London, and the climate center of the Red Cross, which is located in The Hague.