Global warming is leading to more and more fires worldwide and causing the death of 12,000 more people a year due to fire smoke inhalation, according to new research, as reported by The Guardian.

Global warming increases the risk of death from fire smoke inhalation, particularly in Australiaat South Americain Europe and at northern forests of Asia.

Another study reported that between 2003 and 2019, global warming increased the amount of land burned across the planet by almost 16%, but other human actions, such as clearing forests and savannas from roads or the countryside, reduced the total burned area by 19%.

Both studies, published in the journal Nature Climate Changelooked at the effect of adding greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere due to forest fires, compared to other human actions such as land clearing.

The study – led by Dr Chae Yeon Park of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies – estimated that the decade of 2010 nearly 100,000 people died every year from inhaling smoke from wildfires that contains tiny particles, known as PM2.5, that can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream.

How global warming contributes to these deaths has been difficult to understand because while higher temperatures and lower humidity increase the risk of wildfires, other direct human interventions – such as the clearing of forests and savannahs – reduce the area that can burn. to burn the fire or limit the spread of the fire.

To overcome the problem, the researchers looked at three models of global vegetation and fire under current climate conditions and compared them to a model where the modern effects of climate change were eliminated.

While the results varied, the authors from eight countries, including the UK, US, Germany and China, found that in all cases, global warming caused an increasing number of deaths from people breathing in PM2.5 from fires.

In some areas, rising temperatures were the main factor in increasing fire risk, while in others, lower humidity.

The authors said that the health effects from wildfires could be underestimated because the “toxicity of particulate matter from fire smoke” was more severe than from other sources.

Professor Hilary Bambrick, director of the National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, said millions of people in Australia were exposed to dangerously high levels of smoke pollution during the black summer fires of 2019 and 2020.

“This resulted in hundreds of deaths at the time and will likely have long-term health consequences for manysaid Bambrick, who was not involved in the study.

“This study highlights just one of the many ways climate change is bad for our health. Understanding impacts like these will help us better plan for the future».

Another study, led by scientists from the UK and Belgium, found that global warming is increasing the risk of wildfires, particularly in Australia, Siberia and the African savannas.

Seppe Lampe, of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), said that while human activities that changed the landscape were helping to reduce the amount of land on the planet burning, “the impact of climate change continues to intensify».

Professor Wim Thiery, co-author of the study at the VUB, said the percentage of land burning due to climate change is “increasing every year”.