About a quarter of the fuel available for the wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles area was caused by human-induced climate change. the study Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles made the announcement Monday.
Researchers noted that the fires, the most destructive in the region's history, would have been as intense and destructive without the influence of climate change. However, the main worsening factor appears to be the downstream effects of two unusually wet winters in recent years in the Southern California region.
Researchers said other factors in fire severity include high but “not entirely unprecedented” Santa Ana winds, and that there is a link between global warming and Santa Ana wind strength. He added that there was no obvious relationship.
The weather, combined with the unusual heat of last summer and fall and the late start of the region's recent rainy season, has dried out more vegetation, making it ideal fuel for fires. From May 2024 to January 8, the day after the wildfires, just over a quarter inch of rain fell in Southern California. This was the lowest level for this period in 60 years and the second driest in 150 years of record.
According to the study, on January 7, when the first fire broke out, moisture levels in dead plants were the sixth lowest on record.
Researchers note that anthropogenic climate change is associated with increased precipitation because it adds more water vapor to the atmosphere. They estimate that for each degree of warming, “atmospheric river” storms that hit the region will contain about 4 percent more moisture, which combined with the roughly 2.7 degrees of warming since pre-industrial times. , it can contain up to 11 percent more water. For each event.
“However, there is no observational evidence that atmospheric moisture transport in California's winter storms, or the most powerful of these storms, is ever intensifying, and climate change is likely to increase the amount of total precipitation in 2023-2024. “The extent to which this facilitated the increase in “this time is highly uncertain,'' they wrote.
This study was conducted in rapid response to an ongoing fire and has not been peer-reviewed.
