Washington:
The climate change promoted by humans prepared the stage for the devastating forest fires of Los Angeles by reducing rain, parchment vegetation and the extension of the dangerous overlap between flammable drought conditions and the powerful winds of Santa Ana, according to an analysis Posted on Tuesday.
The study, conducted by dozens of researchers, concluded that the fire -prone conditions that fed the fires were approximately 35 percent more likely due to global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“Climate change increased the risk of the devastating forest fires of Los Angeles,” said Clair Barnes of Imperial College London, the main author of the study for the attribution of world climate, an international academic collaboration.
“The drought conditions are increasingly pushing to winter, which increases the probability that the fires will be broken during the strong winds of Santa Ana that can transform small lit into mortal hell.
“Without a faster transition from fossil fuels that heat the planet, California will continue to get warmer, drier and more flammable.”
– Projected to get worse –
The study does not address the direct causes of forest fires, which exploded in Los Angeles on January 7, killing at least 29 people and destroying more than 10,000 homes, the most destructive in the history of the city.
Researchers are investigating the role of the electric company of Southern California Edison in one of the fires, the Fire Eaton.
On the other hand, the researchers analyzed the weather data and climatic models to evaluate how such events have evolved under the current climate, which has heated approximately 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels.
Using peer reviewed methods, they discovered that hot, dry and suction conditions were 1.35 times more likely due to climate change.
Looking towards the future, the study warns that in the current scenarios, where global warming reaches 4.7f (2.6c) for 2100, similar fire climate events in January will become a more likely 35 percent.
Historically, the rain from October to December has marked the end of the forest fire season.
However, these rains have decreased in recent decades.
The study found that the low precipitation in these months is now 2.4 times more likely during the neutral conditions of El Niño, which leads to drier and flammable conditions that persist in the peak of the Santa Ana wind season in December and January .
– Uncertainty areas –
The relationship between climate change and the winds of Santa Ana, which are formed in the western deserts, then heat up and dry as they flow through the California mountains, remains without being clear.
While most studies predict a decrease in these winds as the weather is heated, some suggest that the Santa Ana wind events and particularly strong years will persist.
This year’s fires followed two wet winters in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024, which stimulated the growth of grass and brush. However, almost no rain this winter left the dry and highly flammable vegetation.
Worldwide, the extreme changes between very humid and very dry conditions, known as “cervical precipitation whip”, are becoming more common. These swings are driven by a warmer atmosphere that can contain and release greater amounts of moisture, exacerbating climatic extremes.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).