By hannover-web.com In a recent paper published in the journal *Nature Climate Change* under Springer Nature, researchers have conducted a modeling study on climate change and its impact on wildfire-related human mortality. The study suggests that from the 1960s to the 2010s, climate change may have led to a tenfold increase in the proportion of deaths related to wildfire smoke. The regions with the highest mortality rates are identified as South America, Australia, Europe, and northern Asia’s forests.
This research highlights the dangers posed by wildfire smoke and the tiny particulate matter it contains, known as PM2.5, which refers to particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. Current estimates indicate that globally, approximately 98,748 people die each year due to smoke associated with wildfires. While effective fire management and suppression activities have reduced the number of fires in recent decades, climate change has extended the fire season and increased the overall area burned.
The lead author of the paper, Chae Yeon Park from the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan, along with colleagues, examined significant changes in dangerous wildfire emissions worldwide from 1960 to 2019 using three different fire-vegetation models. They compared simulations that reproduced historical observational data with hypothetical models that excluded historical climate change. Their findings revealed that in the 1960s, around 1% to 3% of wildfire-related deaths could be attributed to climate change. By the 2010s, this figure had risen to approximately 5% to 28%, depending on the model used.
As a result, the excess mortality attributed to climate change is expected to increase from fewer than 669 cases in the 1960s to around 12,566 cases in the 2010s. Most of these deaths due to climate-related increases in wildfires have occurred in tropical forests, grasslands, temperate forests in North America, Mediterranean forests in Europe, and near northern forests. Additionally, because of atmospheric transport and population exposure, the attributable deaths are primarily occurring in South America, northern Africa, Europe, and near northern Asian forests.
The authors of the paper note that establishing a direct link between climate change and wildfires, along with the resulting particulate matter, is challenging due to a number of variables such as fuel supply and climate patterns. However, they believe that this study has established a clear connection between climate change and wildfire mortality in certain regions.
In conclusion, the authors state that although the three models used in the research exhibited different levels of attribution regarding particulate matter and mortality, all models demonstrated consistent trends in specific areas.
