Media Releases and Opportunities

Climate change is contributing to a rise in increasingly destructive wildfires around the world despite human interventions to temper the trend, according to a new international report led by scientists from Dalhousie University, Belgium and the UK.

The study, which compared wildfire models with and without the effects of climate change, shows that in many regions both the frequency and intensity of wildfires are increasing, especially in sensitive ecosystems in African savannas, Australia and Siberia.

The findings, however, point to large regional differences. In Africa, where up to 70 per cent of the global burnt area is located, there was a marked decline in wildfires, due largely to the increase in human activity and land fragmentation that makes it harder for fires to spread. Conversely, in forested areas such as California and Siberia, the number of fires is increasing, due to longer periods of drought and higher temperatures linked to climate change.

A separate paper, also published today in Nature Climate Change, found that climate change may have increased the proportion of wildfire smoke-related deaths tenfold over roughly five decades.

Researchers used models to investigate the changes in hazardous fire emissions globally between 1960 and 2019. They found that between one and three per cent of fire deaths in the 1960s were attributable to climate change, while up to 28 per cent were in the 2010s depending on the model used. This led to a projected increase in excess mortality due to climate change of fewer than 669 deaths in the 1960s to 12,560 in the 2010s. South America, Australia, Europe and the boreal forests of Asia had the highest levels of mortality.

Dr. Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, an associate professor in Dalhousie's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, co-authored both reports and is available to discuss the results, which suggest that if the current pace of climate change continues, the area of burnt land will increase significantly in the coming decades.

                                                                                    -30-

Additional resources for the first paper:

Summary: Research Briefing
More info on current extreme wildfires: State of Wildfires (uea.ac.uk)

Media contact:

Alison Auld
Senior Research Reporter
Dalhousie University
Cell: 902-220-0491
Email: Alison.auld@dal.ca