Weather that drove Iberian wildfires is 40 times more likely due to climate change, report says

By Charlie Devereux

MADRID (Reuters) -The hot, dry and windy conditions this summer that fueled the worst wildfires in Spain for at least three decades are 40 times more likely to recur due to human-caused climate change, according to an analysis by World Weather Attribution.

World Weather Attribution is an international collaboration that has conducted over 110 studies on the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events.

Weather data analysed by a group of 13 scientists found that the extreme conditions that drove last month’s fires in the northwest of the Iberian peninsula, including Portugal, were likely to recur every 15 years due to today’s climate.

The climate is 1.3 degrees Celsius (34.3 Fahrenheit) warmer compared to pre-industrial levels when such events woul