Attribution of summer 2022 extreme wildfire season in Southwest France to anthropogenic climate change

Marine Lanet; Laurent Li; Antoine Ehret; Solène Turquety; Hervé Le Treut

doi:10.1038/s41612-024-00821-z

Attribution of summer 2022 extreme wildfire season in Southwest France to anthropogenic climate change

Marine Lanet, Laurent Li, Antoine Ehret, Solène Turquety, Hervé Le Treut

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Summer 2022 was exceptionally hot and dry in Europe and especially in Southwest France, where the most important wildfires since 1949 had serious environmental and socio-economic impacts. Here we conduct an impact-oriented climate change attribution study by first investigating which climate indices are the most correlated with the burnt area between 2003 and 2022. We find that an index combining soil moisture integrated over 6 months and temperature and vapour pressure deficit integrated over 3 months is correlated with large burnt areas. Using the index developed, we estimate that anthropogenic climate change made climate conditions propitious for wildfire development, such as the ones of July 2022, two times more likely, with a return period of 13 years in the current climate. Our study raises the question of the sustainability of the Landes Forest and stresses the urgent need to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.

Original language	English
Article number	267
Journal	NPJ CLIMATE AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
Volume	7
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-024-00821-z
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2024
Externally published	Yes

Funding

The authors are grateful to the World Climate Research Programme\u2019s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP6, and to the modelling communities for producing and making available their model outputs. All the simulations are publicly available on a website ( https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/ ). To process the data, this study benefited from GENCI computing resources and from the IPSL mesocentre ESPRI facility, which is supported by CNRS, UPMC, Labex L-IPSL, CNES and Ecole Polytechnique. The authors acknowledge support from the European NBRACER project (Horizon Programme under grant agreement 101112836).

Funders	Funder number
Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Grand Équipement National De Calcul Intensif
Labex L-IPSL
Fondation de l'École Polytechnique	101112836
Fondation de l'École Polytechnique

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AU - Ehret, Antoine

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Attribution of summer 2022 extreme wildfire season in Southwest France to anthropogenic climate change

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