Quantifying the Relationship Between Wildfires and Climate Crisis: A New Study

May 16, 2023

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

• fact-checked
• peer-reviewed publication
• reputable news agency
• proofread

by Issam AHMED

In a groundbreaking study, American climate scientists have quantified the extent to which greenhouse gases from major fossil fuel companies have led to devastating wildfires.

The analysis, published on Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters, found that carbon dioxide and methane emissions from the world's top 88 fossil fuel firms, including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell, were responsible for over a third of the area damaged by forest fires in western North America in the past 40 years. The study was conducted by Kristina Dahl and colleagues from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Dahl told AFP that wildfires in western North America have been increasing in intensity, lasting for longer periods, covering wider areas, and reaching higher altitudes. The cost of rebuilding and increasing resilience has mainly been borne by the general public, which makes it essential to understand the fossil fuel industry's role in altering the wildfire landscape.

The team used climate modeling to calculate that emissions from the Big 88, across the life cycle of fossil fuels from extraction to refinement and use inside a vehicle, increased the global average temperature by 0.9°F (0.5°C) since the beginning of the 20th century, or around half the observed warming.

The authors used this information to determine the firms' contribution to planet-wide warming, which subsequently helped calculate how much they added to a rise in 'vapor pressure deficit' (VPD) within the western North America region. A higher VPD makes an area more susceptible to fire, and research has established that rising temperatures caused by climate change increase this aridity measure too.

All these factors combine to show that emissions from the Big 88 companies were responsible for 37% of the total area burned by fires in western North America between 1986 and 2021. That is approximately 19.8 million acres (8 million hectares), which is an area almost the size of the Czech Republic. Such companies are also responsible for nearly half of the observed increase in VPD since 1901.

Although other factors such as aggressive fire suppression and accidental ignitions have also contributed to the increase in fire danger conditions over the past century, the research builds on an accumulating body of climate 'attribution' studies. These calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels that have led to global temperature increases, sea level rise, and ocean acidification.

Dahl stressed that this work has paved the way for affected communities to pursue action through lawsuits and shift the conversation away from individual responsibility and towards the companies' accountability.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is urging governments to investigate the fossil fuel industry's disinformation campaigns for denying climate science and limiting policy action predicted by the firms' internal modeling in the past and present.

More information: Kristina A Dahl et al, Quantifying the contribution of major carbon producers to increases in vapor pressure deficit and burned area in western US and southwestern Canadian forests, Environmental Research Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/acbce8

Journal information: Environmental Research Letters

© 2023 AFP