Climate change helped to set the stage for the devastating Los Angeles fires this month, a new study by 32 researchers shows.
The Palisades and Eaton wildfires broke out in early January and soon killed at least 28 people, destroying 16,000 structures. Hot, dry conditions and extraordinarily powerful winds fanned the flames.
Those conditions were made about 35 percent more likely because of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels warming the planet, according to the study. Fire risk will only grow unless the pollution causing climate change stops.
“Realistically, this was a perfect storm when it comes to conditions for fire disasters,” John Abatzoglou, professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced, said in a press call today.
“This was a perfect storm when it comes to conditions for fire disasters.”
In today’s climate, the extreme weather that drove January infernos can be expected about every 17 years, according to the study.
The study was conducted by the World Weather Attribution initiative, an international collaboration of scientists that researches the role that climate change plays in disasters around the world. They look at historical weather data and climate models to compare real-world scenarios to what likely would have happened if the planet wasn’t 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer today, on average, than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
If the planet warms by another 1.3 degrees Celsius, which could happen in 75 years under current policies, the kind of weather that exacerbated the fires this month becomes another 35 percent more probable.
The length of the dry season in the region has already grown by about 23 days, according to the researchers. That increases the chances of arid weather coinciding with the powerful Santa Ana winds that typically pick up in cooler months.
While those winds return each year, they were catastrophically strong this month — reaching hurricane strength at upwards of 100 miles per hour. For now, scientists don’t have enough research to know how climate change affected the Santa Ana winds, specifically. Their research only shows that fire season is encroaching more into windy season because of climate change, and that made these fires more likely.