Attribution of the Australian bushfire risk to anthropogenic climate change
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh,Folmer Krikken,Sophie C. Lewis,Nicholas J. Leach,Flavio Lehner,Flavio Lehner,Flavio Lehner,Kate Saunders,Michiel van Weele,Karsten Haustein,Sihan Li,Sihan Li,David Wallom,Sarah Sparrow,Julie Arrighi,Roop Singh,Maarten van Aalst,Maarten van Aalst,Sjoukje Philip,Robert Vautard,Friederike E. L. Otto +20 more
TLDR
In this paper, a physically-based index of fire weather, the Fire Weather Index; long-term observations of heat and drought; and 11 large ensembles of state-of-the-art climate models were used to answer the question to what extent the risk of these fires was exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change.Abstract:
. Disastrous bushfires during the last months of 2019 and January 2020 affected Australia, raising the question to what extent the risk of these fires was exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change. To answer the question for southeastern Australia, where fires were particularly severe, affecting people and ecosystems, we use a physically based index of fire weather, the Fire Weather Index; long-term observations of heat and drought; and 11 large ensembles of state-of-the-art climate models. We find large trends in the Fire Weather Index in the fifth-generation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Atmospheric Reanalysis (ERA5) since 1979 and a smaller but significant increase by at least 30 % in the models. Therefore, we find that climate change has induced a higher weather-induced risk of such an extreme fire season. This trend is mainly driven by the increase of temperature extremes. In agreement with previous analyses we find that heat extremes have become more likely by at least a factor of 2 due to the long-term warming trend. However, current climate models overestimate variability and tend to underestimate the long-term trend in these extremes, so the true change in the likelihood of extreme heat could be larger, suggesting that the attribution of the increased fire weather risk is a conservative estimate. We do not find an attributable trend in either extreme annual drought or the driest month of the fire season, September–February. The observations, however, show a weak drying trend in the annual mean. For the 2019/20 season more than half of the July–December drought was driven by record excursions of the Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Annular Mode, factors which are included in the analysis here. The study reveals the complexity of the 2019/20 bushfire event, with some but not all drivers showing an imprint of anthropogenic climate change. Finally, the study concludes with a qualitative review of various vulnerability and exposure factors that each play a role, along with the hazard in increasing or decreasing the overall impact of the bushfires.read more
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The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises.
Nick Watts,Markus Amann,Nigel W. Arnell,Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson,Jessica Beagley,Kristine Belesova,Maxwell T. Boykoff,Peter Byass,Wenjia Cai,Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum,Stuart Capstick,Jonathan Chambers,Samantha Coleman,Carole Dalin,Meaghan Daly,Niheer Dasandi,Shouro Dasgupta,Michael Davies,Claudia Di Napoli,Paula Dominguez-Salas,Paul Drummond,Robert Dubrow,Kristie L. Ebi,Matthew J. Eckelman,Paul Ekins,Luis E. Escobar,Lucien Georgeson,Su Golder,Delia Grace,Hilary Graham,Paul Haggar,Ian Hamilton,Stella M. Hartinger,Jeremy J. Hess,Shih Che Hsu,Nick Hughes,Slava Mikhaylov,Marcia P. Jimenez,Ilan Kelman,Harry Kennard,Gregor Kiesewetter,Patrick L. Kinney,Tord Kjellstrom,Dominic Kniveton,Pete Lampard,Bruno Lemke,Yang Liu,Zhao Liu,Melissa C. Lott,Rachel Lowe,Jaime Martinez-Urtaza,Mark A. Maslin,Lucy McAllister,Alice McGushin,Celia McMichael,James Milner,Maziar Moradi-Lakeh,Karyn Morrissey,Simon Munzert,Kris A. Murray,Kris A. Murray,Tara Neville,Maria Nilsson,Maquins Odhiambo Sewe,Tadj Oreszczyn,Matthias Otto,Fereidoon Owfi,Olivia Pearman,David Pencheon,Ruth Quinn,Mahnaz Rabbaniha,Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson,Joacim Rocklöv,Marina Romanello,Jan C. Semenza,Jodi D. Sherman,Liuhua Shi,Marco Springmann,Meisam Tabatabaei,Jonathon Taylor,Joaquin Trinanes,Joy Shumake-Guillemot,Bryan N. Vu,Paul Wilkinson,Matthew Winning,Peng Gong,Hugh Montgomery,Anthony Costello +87 more
TL;DR: TRANSLATIONS For the Chinese, French, German, and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.
Journal ArticleDOI
The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future.
Marina Romanello,Alice McGushin,Claudia Di Napoli,Paul Drummond,Nick Hughes,Louis Jamart,Harry Kennard,Pete Lampard,Baltazar Solano Rodriguez,Nigel W. Arnell,Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson,Kristine Belesova,Wenjia Cai,Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum,Stuart Capstick,Jonathan Chambers,Lingzhi Chu,Luisa Ciampi,Carole Dalin,Niheer Dasandi,Shouro Dasgupta,Michael Davies,Paula Dominguez-Salas,Robert Dubrow,Kristie L. Ebi,Matthew J. Eckelman,Paul Ekins,Luis E. Escobar,Lucien Georgeson,Delia Grace,Hilary Graham,Samuel H Gunther,Stella M. Hartinger,Kehan He,Clare Heaviside,Jeremy J. Hess,Shih Che Hsu,Slava Jankin,Marcia P. Jimenez,Ilan Kelman,Gregor Kiesewetter,Patrick L. Kinney,Tord Kjellstrom,Dominic Kniveton,Jason Kai Wei Lee,Bruno Lemke,Yang Liu,Zhao Liu,Melissa C. Lott,Rachel Lowe,Jaime Martinez-Urtaza,Mark A. Maslin,Lucy McAllister,Celia McMichael,Zhifu Mi,James Milner,Kelton Minor,Nahid Mohajeri,Maziar Moradi-Lakeh,Karyn Morrissey,Simon Munzert,Kris A. Murray,Tara Neville,Maria Nilsson,Nick Obradovich,Maquins Odhiambo Sewe,Tadj Oreszczyn,Matthias Otto,Fereidoon Owfi,Olivia Pearman,David Pencheon,Mahnaz Rabbaniha,Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson,Joacim Rocklöv,Renee N Salas,Jan C. Semenza,Jodi D. Sherman,Liuhua Shi,Marco Springmann,Meisam Tabatabaei,Jonathon Taylor,Joaquin Trinanes,Joy Shumake-Guillemot,Bryan N. Vu,Fabian Wagner,Paul Wilkinson,Matthew Winning,Marisol Yglesias,Shihui Zhang,Peng Gong,Hugh Montgomery,Anthony Costello,Ian Hamilton +92 more
TL;DR: The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change : code red for a healthy future as mentioned in this paper, is the most recent publication of the Countdown on Health and Climate Change, 2019.
Journal ArticleDOI
Vegetation fires in the Anthropocene
David M. J. S. Bowman,Crystal A. Kolden,John T. Abatzoglou,Fay H. Johnston,Guido R. van der Werf,Mike D. Flannigan +5 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe recent global and regional trends in fire activity and examine projections for fire regimes in the near future, concluding that the economic and environmental impacts of vegetation fires will worsen as a result of anthropogenic climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere.
Carl Folke,Carl Folke,Stephen Polasky,Johan Rockström,Victor Galaz,Frances Westley,Michèle Lamont,Marten Scheffer,Henrik Österblom,Stephen R. Carpenter,F. Stuart Chapin,Karen C. Seto,Elke U. Weber,Beatrice Crona,Beatrice Crona,Gretchen C. Daily,Partha Dasgupta,Owen Gaffney,Owen Gaffney,Line Gordon,Holger Hoff,Simon A. Levin,Jane Lubchenco,Will Steffen,Will Steffen,Brian Walker +25 more
TL;DR: A systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic is provided in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels
Marina Romanello,Claudia Di Napoli,Paul Drummond,Carole Green,Harry Kennard,Pete Lampard,Daniel Scamman,Nigel W. Arnell,Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson,Lea Berrang Ford,Kristine Belesova,Kathryn Bowen,Wenjia Cai,Max Callaghan,Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum,Jonathan Chambers,Kim Robin van Daalen,Carole Dalin,Niheer Dasandi,Shouro Dasgupta,Michael Davies,Paula Dominguez-Salas,Robert Cesar Dubrow,Kristie L. Ebi,Matthew J. Eckelman,Paul Ekins,Luis E. Escobar,Lucien Georgeson,Hilary Graham,Samuel H Gunther,Ian Hamilton,Yu Hang,Risto Hänninen,Stella M. Hartinger,Kehan He,Jeremy J. Hess,Shih Che Hsu,Slava Mikhaylov,Louis Jamart,Ollie Jay,Ilan Kelman,Gregor Kiesewetter,Patrick L. Kinney,Tord Kjellstrom,Dominic Kniveton,Jason Kai Wei Lee,Bruno Lemke,Yang Liu,Zhao Liu,Melissa C. Lott,Martin Lotto Batista,Rachel Lowe,Frances A S MacGuire,Maquins Odhiambo Sewe,Jaime Martinez-Urtaza,Mark A. Maslin,Lucy McAllister,Alice McGushin,Celia McMichael,Zhifu Mi,James Milner,Kelton Minor,Jan C. Minx,Nahid Mohajeri,Maziar Moradi-Lakeh,Karyn Morrissey,Simon Munzert,Kris A. Murray,Tara Neville,Maria Nilsson,Nick Obradovich,Megan B. O'Hare,Tadj Oreszczyn,Matthias Otto,Fereidoon Owfi,Olivia Pearman,Mahnaz Rabbaniha,Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson,Joacim Rocklöv,Renee N Salas,Jan C. Semenza,Jodi D. Sherman,Liuhua Shi,Joy Shumake-Guillemot,Grant Silbert,Mikhail Sofiev,Marco Springmann,Jennifer D. Stowell,Meisam Tabatabaei,Jon Taylor,Joaquin Trinanes,Fabian Wagner,Paul Wilkinson,Matthew Winning,Marisol Yglesias-González,Shihui Zhang,Peng Gong,Hugh Montgomery,Anthony Costello +98 more
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