Human-induced climate change has significantly amplified the major wildfires that recently devastated central Spain and south-western France, according to a new analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA).
The fires, described as some of the worst ever recorded in both countries, resulted in several deaths, destroyed thousands of homes, and forced the evacuation of over 300,000 people. The WWA analysis examined historical weather patterns using a daily fire severity index (DSR), which considers heat, dryness, and wind conditions, to assess changes in fire-prone weather.
The report states that climate change has created extreme weather conditions conducive to these fires. Under current climate conditions, high-intensity fires are expected to occur approximately once every six years in central Spain and once every 20 years in south-western France.
Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor Emeritus in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford, noted that the persistent anticyclonic weather pattern across Western Europe this summer amplified global warming effects. He added that if these patterns are becoming more frequent, the extreme summer experienced now may become the new normal. However, he also stated that current climate models struggle to simulate long-lived anticyclonic circulation anomalies, making it difficult to confidently answer the 'dynamical attribution problem'.