MADRID — The extremely hot, dry and windy conditions, which fueled one of the Iberian Peninsula’s most destructive wildfire seasons in recorded history, were 40 times more likely due to climate change, according to a study released Thursday.
The analysis by world Whether Attribution, or WWA, said the weather conditions were about 30% more intense compared to the preindustrial era, when heavy reliance on fossil fuels began.hundreds of wildfires in the Iberian Peninsula broke out in July and August.They spread rapidly thanks to temperatures that pushed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and strong winds.
The fires in Spain and Portugal killed eight people, forced more than 35,000 evacuations and scorched more than 640,000 hectares (1.58 million acres) or roughly two-thirds of Europe’s total burned area this year.
Most blazes are now under control,officials say,as temperatures have dropped considerably.
“Hotter, drier and more flammable conditions are becoming more severe with climate change, and are giving rise to fires of unprecedented intensity,” said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College, London.Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average as the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate change Service.
WWA, a group of researchers that examines whether and to what extent extreme weather events are linked to climate change, focused on the conditions that allowed the Iberian wildfires to