The Guardian

Canada is on track for its most severe wildfire season ever. This is our new climate reality

Dharna Noor

Canada’s wildfire season is a harbinger of our climate future, experts say. Research shows that climate change

has already exacerbated wildfires dramatically with a 2021 study supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finding that global rising temperatures have been the main driver of the increase in hot, dry fire weather in the western US.

Another UN report warned last year that, by 2090, global wildfires are expected to increase in intensity by up to 57% . But the problem is already one of pressing concern in Canada, which has already seen 1,400% of the average area of land burned for this time of year. More than 400 blazes were burning across Canada on Wednesdayand hot and dry conditions are expected to persist through to the end of the season. Multiple climate-linked factors have exacerbated

this year’s fires, said Mohammadreza Alizadeh, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal. Dry conditions left vegetation parched, while hotter air has made it easier for fires to break out. Lightning strikes more frequently during hot weather, and this has increased the chances of blazes.

Both the intensity and wide distribution of this year’s fires have stunned officials, with fires burning in nearly every Canadian province and territory.

“The distribution of fires from coast to coast this year is unusual. At this time of the year, fires usually occur only on one side of the country at a time, most often that being in the west,” Michael Norton, an official with Canada’s natural resources ministry, told Reuters.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles, said research shows there has already been an increase in fire weather in eastern Canada, linked to global heating. “There’s a clear climate connection there,” he said.

In eastern Canada, where fires are also blazing, there hasn’t been as much of a demonstrable link to climate change, but that may be starting to shift, he said.

The fires have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes since May, and created smoke that has degraded air quality hundreds of miles away in the US. Marshall Burke, an associate professor of earth system science at Stanford University, said the thick smoke that descended on New York City this week is bigger in scale than anything seen in the last two decades. It was “off the charts relative to anything in the past two decades,” he said.

res remind us that carbon pollution carries a cost on our society, as it accelerates climate change,” Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, tweeted on Wednesday.

Some US politicians made that link as well. “Climate change makes wildfires more frequent and widespread. If we do nothing, this is our new reality,” tweeted Bernie Sanders. “It’s time to act.”

The Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed the sentiment. “We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP to prepare for what’s to come and catch up to what is already here,” she tweeted.

Wildfires are already of pressing concern in Canada, which has seen 1,400% of the average area of land burned for this time of year

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2023-06-09T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-09T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/281749863753726

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