Severe Fires After a Wet Winter? Experts Cite Climate Change

After prolonged drought in many Western states gave way to much-needed rainfall last winter, wildfire experts expected a tame summer. Instead, they got millions of acres burned, including the largest brushfire in Los Angeles' history.

As Robinson Meyer writes, "The answer lies in the summer's record-breaking heat, say wildfire experts. Days of near-100-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures cooked the Mountain West in early July, and a scorching heat wave lingered over the Pacific Northwest in early August."

Meyer calls on several experts, including Park Williams, a research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "This excessive heat can have an outsize effect on the size of forest fires. For more than three decades, wildfire researchers have known that fire and aridity, which is controlled by heat, exist in an exponential relationship. Every degree of warming does more to promote fire than the previous degree of warming, Williams said."

Williams also referred to intense wildfires as a "canary in the coal mine" for the effects of climate change, specifically of the human-caused variety.