<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/20/wildfires-europe-increase-climate-scenario-study>
"Wildfires are projected to burn 39% more of Europe by the end of the century
even in the best-case scenario for stopping the planet from heating, a study
has found, unless action is taken to manage them better.
The increase in hot, dry and windy weather that leads to small fires turning
into raging infernos is to engulf more of Europe as carbon pollution pushes
temperatures higher. In the worst-case scenario the researchers modelled, which
would see global heating reach 3.6C above preindustrial levels, the burnt area
would almost triple.
Improvements in fire management could moderate those increases by more than
70%, the study found, but not eradicate them entirely.
“Investments into fire management could help to a certain limit, but if we go
on a path of high emissions … we still see strong increases in burnt area,”
said Maik Billing, an ecosystem researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research (PIK) and lead author of the study. “Fire management cannot
replace climate mitigation.”
The research comes as wildfires continue to ravage Europe, with large blazes
hitting northern European countries such as the UK, Belgium and Germany after
weeks in which France, Spain, Italy, Croatia and Greece battled monster
infernos.
Across the EU, this fire season is set to become the third-worst on record,
behind 2025 and 2022, according to data published by the European Forest Fire
Information Service on Thursday. More than 600,000 hectares have burned so far,
with records broken for this time of year in Belgium, France and Slovakia.
The researchers, who compared the projected annual burnt area in 2070-2100 with
modelled results for the period 2000-2030, found the increase in fire weather
was the biggest driver of change.
In the optimistic scenario, in which global heating is capped at 1.8C, a little
above the current level of 1.4C, some regions showed moderate increases in fire
weather while others experienced little change. In the pessimistic scenario,
however, with 3.6C of heating by the end of the century, the researchers found
consistent worsening of fire weather across “virtually all of Europe”.
Scientists expect current policies to result in about 2.6C of global heating by
the end of the century."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
