Climate change has driven record-breaking outbreaks of fire in Africa, Asia and beyond as the northern hemisphere's summer approaches, scientists warned Tuesday.
Fires from January to April have burned more than 150 million hectares of land, a 20% increase over the previous record, according to World Weather Attribution, a research group studying global warming's role in extreme weather. Researchers said temperature records could be broken this year, causing widespread drought and fires, with human-induced climate change compounded by an especially strong El Niño effect.
"Whilst in many parts of the world the global fire season has yet to heat up, this rapid start, in combination with the forecast El Niño, means that we're looking at a particularly severe year materialising," said Theodore Keeping, a wildfire expert at Imperial College London and part of the WWA group.
As much as 85 million hectares have burned in Africa so far this year, 23% more than the previous record. The unusually high fire activity is driven by rapid shifts from extremely wet to extremely dry conditions, he said.
Asian fires have burned nearly 44 million hectares, roughly 40% more than the 2014 record, with India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and China among the worst hit.
Keeping warned that severe heat and drought could also impact Australia, Canada, the United States and the Amazon rainforest if a strong El Niño develops.
"The likelihood of harmful extreme fires potentially could be the highest we've seen in recent history," he said.
El Niño weather conditions, caused by the warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, are expected to start in May, the World Meteorological Organization said last month. It could cause droughts in Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia as well as flooding in other regions.
"If there is a strong El Niño later this year, there is a serious risk that the effect of climate change and El Niño will result in unprecedented weather extremes," said Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution.