Wildfires in 2017 were not an accident
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VANCOUVER — Research suggests British Columbia’s record-setting 2017 wildfire season wasn’t an accident and Environment Canada scientists say climate change stacked the deck against the province from the start.
In a newly published paper, researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis say hot, dry weather directly caused by greenhouse gas emissions increased the province’s fire risk that year by up to four times.
The same factors are likely to have increased the amount of land scorched by up to 11 times.
Megan Kirchmeier-Young, lead author of the paper published in the journal Earth’s Future, says the research is an example of science’s growing ability to attribute the influence of climate change on specific events.
