Human-caused climate change had an important impact on the recent ferocious wildfires that engulfed parts of Chile and Argentina's Patagonia region, making the extremely high-risk conditions that led to widespread burning up to three times more likely than in a world without global warming, a team of researchers warned on 11 February.
The hot, dry and gusty weather that fed last month's deadly wildfires in central and southern Chile was made around 200 per cent more likely by human-made greenhouse gas emissions while the high-fire-risk conditions that fuelled the blazes still racing through southern Argentina were made 150 per cent more likely, according to World Weather Attribution, a scientific initiative that investigates extreme weather events soon after they happen.
