Madrid, Sep 4 (AP) The devastating wildfire season in the Iberian Peninsula, one of the most severe in recorded history, was made 40 times more likely by the impact of climate change, as concluded by a recent study released on Thursday. The study, conducted by the World Weather Attribution (WWA), highlighted that the weather conditions responsible for the fires were about 30 percent more intense than in the preindustrial era, when fossil fuel usage began.
Summer Wildfires Throughout July and August, hundreds of wildfires erupted across the Iberian Peninsula. Extreme temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius and fierce winds facilitated rapid fire spread. The wildfires in Spain and Portugal resulted in eight fatalities, over 35,000 evacuations, and burned approximately 640,000 hectares (1.58 million acres), accounting for nearly two-thirds of Europe’s total burned area this year. The fires are largely under control now, officials report, as the weather has cooled significantly.
“Climate change is intensifying the hotter, drier, and more flammable conditions, resulting in fires of unprecedented intensity,” commented Clair Barnes, a researcher from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College, London. Warming in Europe has been occurring at double the global average rate since the 1980s, says the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The Role of Climate Change The WWA, a consortium of researchers analyzing the links between extreme weather events and climate change, scrutinized the factors that fueled the rapid spread of the Iberian wildfires. This included Spain's record-breaking ten-day heat wave in August, as reported by the country’s weather agency, AEMET. The findings suggest that without climate change, such hot, dry, and windy conditions would only occur once every 500 years.
“This rapid assessment further corroborates evidence that human-induced climate change boosts the frequency and severity of extreme heat and the combined hot and dry weather conducive to wildfires,” noted Valérie Masson-Delmotte, a climate scientist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, who was not a part of the study. Unlike a full attribution study, which delves into the specific influence of climate change on extreme weather events, the WWA's analysis utilized weather observations without climate models. Nevertheless, the results align with other research regarding regional wildfires and a recent WWA study on this year's fires in Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus, which found climate change made fire-prone conditions there 10 times more likely.
“While wildfires are a hallmark of the Mediterranean climate, human-induced climate change is increasing the recurrence and severity of environments optimal for intense fires, complicating firefighting efforts,” Masson-Delmotte added.
Neglecting Rural Areas Researchers pointed to additional contributors to the wildfire severity, including long-term population movements from rural areas to urban centers in Spain and Portugal. This shift has left expansive tracts of abandoned, overgrown farmland and forests, which exacerbates fire risk. To mitigate wildfire risk, the research suggests using machinery to clear vegetation, promoting grazing by livestock, and controlled burns.
“Over past decades, significant depopulation of rural areas has led to the accumulation of fine fuels to hazardous levels, a situation worsened by inadequate forestry management,” stated Ricardo Trigo, a professor at the University of Lisbon's Department of Geophysics, Geographical Engineering, and Energy.
Reacting to these challenges, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez proposed a 10-point plan to better equip the nation for natural disasters aggravated by climate change, advocating for cooperation with Portugal and France. (AP)
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