<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/22/smoke-pollution-from-wildfires-may-be-killing-an-extra-12000-people-a-year-new-research-suggests>
"Global heating is causing more of the planet to be burned from wildfires and
probably killing an extra 12,000 people a year from breathing in smoke, new
research has found.
Global heating was particularly increasing the risk of death from wildfire
smoke in Australia, South America, Europe and the boreal forests of Asia, one
modelling study found.
A separate study said between 2003 and 2019 global heating had increased the
area of the planet being burned almost 16% but other human actions, including
clearing forests and savannahs for roads or agriculture, had lowered the total
burned area by 19%.
Both studies, published in the journal
Nature Climate Change, teased apart
the effect that adding greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere was having on
wildfires, compared with other human actions such as land clearing.
The study – led by Dr Chae Yeon Park of Japan’s National Institute for
Environmental Studies – estimated that in the 2010s that almost 100,000 people
died each year from breathing smoke from fires that contain tiny particles,
known as PM2.5, that can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream.
How global heating is contributing to these deaths has been difficult to
understand because, while hotter temperatures and lower humidity increase the
risk of fires, other direct human interventions – such as the fragmenting of
forests and savannahs – reduce the area that can burn or suppress the spread of
fire.
To overcome the problem, the researchers looked at three models of global
vegetation and fire under today’s climate conditions and compared them to a
model where modern-day climate change effects were removed.
While the results varied, the authors from eight countries, including the UK,
the US, Germany and China, found that in all cases global heating was causing a
rising number of deaths from people breathing PM2.5 from wildfires.
In some regions temperature increases were the main factor for increasing fire
risk while in others, it was lower humidity.
The authors said the health effects from wildfires could be underestimated
because the “toxicity of particles originating from fire” were more severe than
from other sources."
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
