Sentences with phrase «fuel aridity»

They found that climate change is responsible for 55 percent of the observed increasing fuel aridity.

He said about half of the increase in «fuel aridity» — a measure of the dryness of forests that indicates higher fire risk — can be attributed to human activity.

«The exact percentage of human contribution remains uncertain, but the overall relationship — an increase in fuel aridity, fire days, and fire extent — is clear and significant,» Anchukaitis said.

That said, the overall trend is clear: with fuel aridity increasing in the western U.S. due in part to human - caused climate change, the authors project that both burned area and burn severity will continue to increase under climate change.

But fuel aridity alone also doesn't fully explain burn severity, according to the authors.

According to one study that looked at eight fuel aridity metrics in the Western U.S. and modeled climate change's effects on them, human - caused climate change accounted for about 55 percent of the observed increases in fuel aridity between 1979 and 2015 (Figure 6), and added an estimated 4.2 million hectares of forest fire area between 1984 and 2015.7 Based on all eight metrics, the Western U.S. experienced an average of 9 additional days per year of high fire potential due to climate change between 2000 and 2015, a 50 percent increase from the baseline of 17 days per year when looking back to 1979.

Not exact matches

Pueblo people of the ancient American Southwest contributed to the region's aridity and its erosion cycle by destroying forests to fuel their kilns.

So, too, has global warming as a consequence of the combustion of fossil fuels, which has begun to extend the growing season, create ever greater levels of fuels and increase aridity in already dry lands.