Climate change made deadly wildfires in Turkey, Greece

ATHENS, Greece — Local weather change that has pushed scorching temperatures and dwindling rainfall made huge wildfires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus this summer time burn way more fiercely, mentioned a brand new examine launched Thursday.

The examine by World Climate Attribution mentioned the fires that killed 20 individuals, compelled 80,000 to evacuate and burned greater than 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) have been 22% extra intense in 2025, Europe’s worst recorded 12 months of wildfires.

Tons of of wildfires that broke out within the jap Mediterranean in June and July have been pushed by temperatures above 40 levels Celsius (about 104 Fahrenheit), extraordinarily dry situations and robust winds.

WWA, a bunch of researchers that examines whether or not and to what extent excessive climate occasions are linked to local weather change, known as its findings “regarding.”

“Our examine finds a particularly robust local weather change sign in direction of hotter and drier situations,” mentioned Theodore Preserving, a researcher at Centre for Environmental Coverage at Imperial School in London.

“At this time, with 1.3 levels C of warming, we’re seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that has pushed firefighters to their restrict. However we’re heading for as much as 3 levels C this century until nations extra quickly transition away from fossil fuels,” Preserving mentioned.

The examine discovered winter rainfall forward of the wildfires had dropped by about 14% because the pre-industrial period, when a heavy reliance on fossil fuels started. It additionally decided that due to local weather change, weeklong durations of dry, sizzling air that primes vegetation to burn at the moment are 13 occasions extra possible.

The evaluation additionally discovered a rise within the depth of high-pressure programs that strengthened excessive northerly winds, generally known as Etesian winds, that fanned the wildfires.

Gavriil Xanthopoulos, analysis director on the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems of the Hellenic Agricultural Group in Greece, mentioned firefighters used to have the ability to anticipate such winds to die down to manage fires.

“It appears that evidently they can’t rely on this sample anymore,” Xanthopoulos mentioned. Extra examine is required to grasp how the wind patterns are reaching excessive velocities extra typically, he mentioned.

Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor in Earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell College who was not concerned within the WWA analysis, mentioned its abstract and key figures have been according to current literature and his understanding of how local weather change is making climate extra conducive to wildfire.

Local weather change is “loading the cube for extra dangerous wildfire seasons” within the Mediterranean, Lehner mentioned.

___

The Related Press’ local weather and environmental protection receives monetary help from a number of personal foundations. AP is solely chargeable for all content material. Discover AP’s requirements for working with philanthropies, an inventory of supporters and funded protection areas at AP.org.