Climate change will lead to more wildfires • Earth.com

Climate change will lead to more wildfires

02-03-2020


Climate change will lead to more wildfires Today’s Video of the Day from NASA explains that the hotter and drier weather associated with climate change will lead to more frequent wildfires.

Drought conditions make it easier for wildfires to ignite and to spread, and increasingly severe droughts will leave some regions of the world particularly vulnerable to severe fires.

Scientists at NASA recently discovered that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have been influencing drought patterns since the early 1900s. Climate change will lead to more wildfires and the  Wildfires will occur when all the necessary elements of a fire triforce come together in a susceptible area. Therfore an ignition source is brought into contact with a combustible material such as vegetation that is subjected to enough heat and has an adequate supply of oxygen from the ambient air.

A high moisture content usually prevents ignition and slows propagation, because higher temperatures are needed to evaporate any water in the material and heat the material to its fire point. A wildfire front is the portion sustaining continuous flaming combustion, where unburned material meets active flames, or the smoldering transition between unburned and burned material. 

By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: NASA 

 

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