In January, Los Angeles faced severe wildfires due to dry vegetation and powerful Santa Ana winds. Climate change intensified conditions, as hotter temperatures and drier atmospheres, linked to fossil fuel emissions, played a role. However, attributing specific weather variations like wind and rainfall to climate change is challenging. Studies also indicate that while climate impacts are significant, many ignitions from the recent fires resulted from human activities, showing that prevention requires addressing human factors directly and recognizing the anthropogenic nature of these devastating wildfires.
"The ignitions were undoubtedly due to human activity," says Alex Hall, director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA. "So fundamentally, I think these fires are anthropogenic. They are human-created."
While there may be a connection to climate change, it's harder to recognize given the state's highly variable weather, which normally swings from wet to dry years.
New studies are finding the fingerprints of climate change in these wildfires, which made some of the extreme conditions worse.
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