Link between climate change and fires established by Antarctic ice study

A recent study, by climate scientist Ben Riddell-Young and his team, finds that global increases in wildfire activity likely occurred during periods of abrupt climate change, over the past few years. glacial. This discovery is detailed in the pages of the journal Nature.

For their research, the scientists analyzed air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice cores (cylindrical samples of ice), covering a period of 67,000 years, details ScienceAlert. “The original goal was to determine the cause of the abrupt but small increases in methane during periods of abrupt climate change during the last ice age”explique Riddell-Young.

A future that looks hot

By analyzing the successive layers of compacted snow, formed over the years and contained in the ice cores, the team observed moments “where the isotopic composition of methane has jumped far beyond what a geological source could achieve”indicates the media. This gas, not coming from a natural source, necessarily finds its origin in forest fires. By delving deeper into their research, specialists discovered that these fires occurred during periods of sudden climate change.

So high temperatures are not always necessary for fires to start. For example, ice cores date back to the time of the Heinrich events (the first beginning around 60,000 years ago), during which large chunks of ice broke off into the Atlantic Ocean. These incidents caused regional cooling that disrupted precipitation, leading to droughts and, consequently, an increase in fires.

“It’s a feature of this type of climate change that we didn’t really know about before.”says the climatologist. Indeed, if temperature variations and changes in tropical precipitation are known characteristics of climate change, fires have not been part of the equation until now.

In the future, the situation may become increasingly worrying, as current global warming is much more rapid and global than that observed during the Heinrich events. This is precisely what we are currently seeing in California, with the Pacific Palisades fires. As of Wednesday January 8, 1,200 hectares had already gone up in flames.