Excited to be able to share this comprehensive review on the many ways that climate change is increasing bushfire risk in southeast Australia, just published in @CommsEarth.
Thread 👇 describing what we found:
[paper is open
This was a huge collaborative effort across climate and fire science experts, including from @ClimateExtremes and @BushfireHub, who came together following the #BlackSummer disaster in Australia.
Our review focuses on forest fires in southeast Australia (NSW + ACT + Victoria).
The #BlackSummer fires were unprecedented:
*In their scale (23% of all southeast Australia forests were burnt)
*In their power (for every month of the spring and summer seasons), and
*In the number of fires that developed into extreme pyroconvective events
Climate in SE Australia in 2019 was also the hottest and driest on record.
Regional warming is part of human-caused global warming trend.
Dry conditions were part of a 3-year drought with consecutive winter rain failures. Long-term winter drying trend appears to be emerging.
Dry years in southeast Australia are usually also hot, (and wet years are usually cool), due to land-atmosphere feedbacks.
And years of large bushfires in southeast Australia have clustered in the hot-&-dry quadrant of historical climate conditions
