June 13, 2012

Homeland Security News Wire - Fire risks to increase in some regions of the world

Climate change is expected to disrupt future fire patterns around the world, with some regions, such as the western United States, seeing more frequent fires within the next thirty years, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with an international team of scientists.

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“Most of the previous wildfire projection studies focused on specific regions of the world, or relied upon only a handful of climate models,” said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, associate professor and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “Our study is unique in that we build a forecast for fire based upon consistent projections across 16 different climate models combined with satellite data, which gives a global perspective on recent fire patterns and their relationship to climate.”