Climate change favors forest fires and harms health
Published: Monday, Oct 21st 2024, 17:20
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Due to heat and droughts, climate change favors large forest fires. This is not only damaging the environment and nature, but is also increasingly affecting people's health due to the associated air pollution.
According to a study published in the journal "Nature Climate Change", in which the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich was also involved, climate change has led to more burnt areas in recent decades.
From 2003 to 2019, almost 16 percent more forest burned down compared to a scenario without climate change, writes the team led by Seppe Lampe from the Free University of Brussels. According to the researchers, Australia, South America, western North America and Siberia were particularly affected.
Overall, the area burned decreased by 19 percent during this period. However, this is due to the fact that more and more forest areas were used for agriculture or other purposes. As a result, there are fewer areas that can burn.
However, according to the study, global warming is causing particularly large areas to burn where fires occur. Although heat and drought alone do not trigger fires, they make forests more susceptible to them and also ensure that fires tend to be more severe.
"Our study shows that once fires occur, the impact of climate change becomes increasingly significant with drier and warmer weather conditions," co-author Chantelle Burton from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter is quoted as saying in a press release on the study.
More fires, more air pollution
In a second study in the same journal, a group led by Chae Yeon Park from the Japanese National Institute of Industrial and Science Technology in Tsukuba investigated how such fires damage health. This is because fires also produce smoke and thus fine dust, which can penetrate deep into the lungs. According to the study, the number of deaths caused by fire-related air pollution worldwide rose from around 46,400 per year in the 1960s to around 98,750 in the 2010s.
Based on the results of the first study, more than 12,500 deaths per year in the 2010s due to air pollution caused by fires were attributed to climate change. In the 1960s, this figure was around 670 deaths per year, the group calculates. Regions such as South America, Australia and Europe were particularly affected.
"Our research shows that climate change is increasingly a threat to public health as smoke is more likely to affect densely populated areas," explains lead author Park.
However, the study also mentions exceptions to the trend: in some regions, such as South Asia, a climate change-induced increase in humidity led to fewer deaths from fires.
The analysis is an epidemiological study. Epidemiological studies determine the statistical correlation between risk factors such as particulate matter pollution and health effects such as cardiovascular diseases.
Such studies show correlations, not causalities, so they do not necessarily say anything about causal relationships. The result is a statistical estimate, not an exact indication of clinically identified deaths. The actual value may be higher or lower.
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