The wild fires raging through Los Angeles and surrounding regions, and similar extreme climate conditions, are being fueled by exceptional meteorological conditions strengthened by climate change. This is the main finding by a team of scientists from the ClimaMeter project which describes itself as an ‘a experimental rapid framework’ that understands catastrophic weather events by referencing earlier such occurrences.
Primary weather conditions fueling the fires include temperatures that are up now 5°C warmer, days which are up to 15 per cent drier, and conditions which are 5 km/hour windier.
The study also finds that human driven climate change is the main driver while natural climate variability has played a minor role.
The rapid study was conducted using historical meteorological data and comparing similar low-pressure systems during the late 20th century (1950–1986) with those in recent decades (1987–2023), a period when climate change impacts have become more apparent.
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The analysis also considered natural climate variability, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Climate experts have converged around the understanding that human-caused climate change has made California hotter and drier, making it easier for fires to start and spread. This is causing a larger area to be burned every year. The area burned by wildfires in California annually is now five times bigger than in the 1970s - nearly all of this increase is due to climate change.
The number of days where large fires are possible has increased due to the burning of fossil fuels. Climate change is also making it easier for fires in California to spread quickly; about 25 per cent more fires now spread extremely fast.
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Climate change has also made the fire season longer. There are twice as many days of fire weather today compared to the early 1970s and the number of autumn days with extreme fire weather has more than doubled in California since the early 1980s. Megafire “critical danger days” have tripled in southern California over the last 40 years. Climate-change induced heating and drying has caused 66-90 per cent of the increase in California’s fire weather over the last few decades.
The January 2025 fires are being driven by strong winds. While the winds are not unusual at this time of year, the delayed onset of the rains means that it is unusually dry. Climate change is thus increasing the probability of the strong winds and dry conditions overlapping, which together can intensify fires.
