Climate change is now the main driver of increasing wildfire weather, study finds
LOS ANGELES — A new study adds to a growing body of evidence that climate change is fueling more frequent and intense wildfires in the western U.S.
The study’s researchers report that based on the rate that dry air sucks up moisture, climate change is essentially two-thirds to 88% responsible for the conditions driving the region’s wildfire woes.
And that’s a conservative estimate, said study author Rong Fu, a climate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“It’s happened so much faster than we previously anticipated,” she added.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at what’s known as the vapor pressure deficit, which basically describes how thirsty the atmosphere is, Fu said. The researchers found this to be the leading meteorological variable
