Smoke from wildfires exacerbated by climate change may cause as many as 71,000 additional deaths per year in the United States by 2050, a study published Thursday in the journal Nature found.

That would represent a 73 percent rise in premature deaths from those currently attributed to smoke from wildfires.

The health impacts of climate-driven wildfire smoke would be among the most critical and costly consequences of a warming climate in the U.S. by mid-century, the study’s authors concluded.

“Growing wildfire smoke is a much larger health risk than we might have understood previously,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University and a co-author of the study. • ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 newsletter delivers the week’s climate and e

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