Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has found in a recent study that climate changes have significantly increased forest fires in the country over the past 30 years.
The research, which has been published in Nature Communications, analysed the findings by studying various reasons for fire activities including climate, ignition, fire management, fuel accumulation and others.
The study revealed that Alpine Forests in the southern island of Tasmania were badly affected by fires and besides this, tropical rainforest of Queensland in countries north east were also in the list of affected areas. The study revealed that the fire seasons had become longer due to climate changes and the blazes had become more frequent.
The study revealed that average annual forest bond area has increased by 350% in Australia before 2001 while the percentage increased to 800 when data till 2019 was included.
While talking to media, CSIRO scientist, Pep Canadell, said that it was important to conduct the study to understand how climate changes are affecting future fire activities in the country‘s forests.
The scientist said that of the eight causes of fire activities, climate was the most important factor that played the role in increasing the forest fires. The study also said that the situation will continue to remain challenging as climate changes are still happening across the world.
As per data available with the government, fires in the southern hemisphere summer of 2019 and 2020 were spread across 11.5 millions of hectares of forest land. The government data also shows that more than 30 people were killed in the forest fires and thousands of them had to leave their houses.
As per the Bureau of Meteorology’s State of Climate report, the temperature in Australia is dipping every year with years from 2013 to 2019 being the warmest years in Australia ever.
The scientist also said that Australia is witnessing a significant increase in heat events and that the rainfall is rapidly declining in the southern and eastern regions of the country.
