Global warming is causing more land to burn from wildfires and likely killing 12,000 more people a year from smoke inhalation, according to new research.
Smoke pollution could cause thousands more deaths annually PHOTO Archive
Global warming especially increases the risk of death from fire smoke in Australia, South America, Europe and the boreal forests of Asia, a modeling study shows, according to The Guardian.
Another study showed that between 2003 and 2019, global warming increased the land area affected by fires by almost 16%, but other human actions, such as clearing forests and savannas for roads or agriculture, reduced the total area burned by 19% .
Consequences of greenhouse gas emissions
Both studies, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, looked at the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on wildfires compared to other human actions, such as land clearing.
The study – led by Dr Chae Yeon Park of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies – estimated that in the 2010s nearly 100,000 people died annually from inhaling fire smoke containing tiny particles known as PM2. 5, which can penetrate the lungs and circulatory system.
How global warming contributes to these deaths has been difficult to understand because, although higher temperatures and lower humidity increase the risk of wildfires, other direct human interventions—such as the fragmentation of forests and savannas—reduce the area that can burn or suppress the spread of fire. .
To overcome this problem, the researchers analyzed three models of global vegetation and fires under current climate conditions and compared them to a model in which the effects of current climate change were removed.
Although the results varied, the authors from eight countries, including the UK, the US, Germany and China, found that in all cases, global warming was causing an increasing number of deaths from inhaling PM2.5 from wildfires.
In some regions, rising temperatures were the main factor in increasing wildfire risk, while in others, lower humidity was the main factor.
The authors stated that the health effects of wildfires may be underestimated because “toxicity of particles from fire” is more severe than from other sources.
Long-term consequences
Prof Hilary Bambrick, director of the National Center for Epidemiology and Public Health at the Australian National University, said millions of people in Australia were exposed to dangerous and prolonged levels of smoke pollution during the Black Summer fires of 2019 and 2020. .
“This resulted in hundreds of deaths at the time and will likely have long-term health consequences for many”said Bambrick, who was not involved in the study.
“This study highlights just one of the many ways climate change is bad for our health. Understanding these impacts will help us plan better for the future.”
Another study, led by scientists from the UK and Belgium, found that global warming is increasing the risk of bushfires, particularly in Australia, Siberia and the African savannas.
Seppe Lampe, from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), said that although human activities that have modified the landscape have helped reduce the land area affected by fires, “the effect of climate change continues to grow”.
Prof. Wim Thiery, co-author of the study from VUB, said that the rate at which climate change is increasing the burnt area is “increasing every year”.
