Wildfires could burn nearly three times as much of Europe each year by the end of the century.
That is the conclusion of a study published on Thursday (20 August) by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
“Climate change is driving up fire activity across Europe as hot, dry and windy conditions become more severe,” said Maik Billing, PIK researcher and lead author of the study.
Under a high-emissions pathway, annual burned area rises by around 192 percent, the modelling found.Even on a low-emissions pathway, equivalent to roughly 1.8 degrees Celsius of warming, wildfires would ravage a surface area 39 percent larger by the end of the century than they currently do.
The researchers came to the figures by comparing projected averages for 2070-2100 against a modelled 2000-2030 baseline and ran two separate fire models across five climate projections.
