Amy Hessl, a West Virginia University geographer and paleoclimatologist, who is in Australia doing research for The National Science Foundation, said wildfires in that country have burned an area roughly the size of West Virginia.
“The fires are less extreme today as temperatures have dropped considerably in the past few days,” wrote Hessl in an email from western Tasmania on Wednesday — an island state in the southern part of the country — where she is studying tree rings and ice core data from Antarctica in order to understand the last 2,000 years of climate change in the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.
Hessl said Tasmania, which sits 150 miles off the Australian mainland, remained mostly unscathed from the bushfires that affected the states of Victoria and New South Wales in the southeastern portion of the country.
“Fire has been an important part of the Australian landscape for tens of thousands of years,” she said. “Global warming has caused the fire season to start earlier, last longer and to be more extreme as temperatures are more elevated than in the past.
“In some places, like Tasmania there is some indication that there are more dry lightning strikes as a result of climate change as well. So all of these human-caused changes to the climate system increase the likelihood of bushfire,” she said. “So yes, warm, dry weather is an immediate cause of fires, but global warming has increased the number of days when fires are possible and increased the severity of the fire weather — creating more opportunities for widespread and extreme fires to occur.”
For the last six years, Hessl has been working with scientists to reconstruct the history of climate variation in southern Australia and to link that history with models of how the climate system works.
“We are part of a large community keep paleoclimatologists who have worked with climate modelers to forecast what future climate change will look like and what it will mean for societies and ecosystems,” Hessl said.
Since the bushfires began months ago, more than a half billion animals have been affected, with millions dead, according to national news reports. The fires have resulted in more than 20 deaths and left many homeless.
Hessl said during the last 12 months, Australia has experienced extreme lows in precipitation and record-breaking temperatures. In the presence of high winds, an ignition source, and abundant and flammable vegetation, these conditions increase the likelihood of extreme fire events like those currently affecting southeastern Australia, she added.
“The good news is that our ability to predict these weather conditions and the climate conditions of the future is excellent. A severe fire season was forecast well in advance of these fires giving many people and businesses time to
plan ahead.”
Australia has been largely dependent on a system of volunteer fire-fighting crews to battle the bushfires, Hessl said. Firefighting crews from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, as well as other countries, are pitching in, she said.
“But much more needs to be done to help communities prepare for future fires and recovery,” she said. “The most important step the world can make to help Australia is to reduce greenhouse emissions.”
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Note: The headline this story originally ran under noted the wildfires in Australia have burned an area the size of Morgantown. Due to a copy editor’s error, the size was misstated. The fires have burned an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and the current headline reflects this change.
