Science Source
Medieval warming initiated exceptionally large wildfire outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains
- States that climate change may increase both the frequency of wildfires and the amount of area burned in the western United States and other forested regions
- States that studies of past climate changes and their effects on wildfires can provide constraints on potential future wildfire risks
- Reconstructs the history of wildfire across a representative subalpine forest landscape in northern Colorado over the past two millennia
- Finds that warming of about 0.5°C approximately 1,000 years ago increased the percentage of study sites burned per century by about 260% relative to the past 400 or so years
- Concludes that the large increase in the number of sites burned by fires highlights the risk that large portions of individual landscapes may burn as climates continue to warm today
- Findings support the link between increased air and land surface temperature and increased wildfire risk
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