The study, conducted by the academic partnership "World Weather Attribution" with the Portuguese Red Cross, concluded that large fires in Portugal and Spain have been "substantially amplified" by climate change, which is exacerbating hot, dry, and windy weather conditions.
The authors of the study, which focused on the northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula, state that weather conditions conducive to fires are now more likely and about 30% more intense than in the pre-industrial period.
Major heat waves, which before the Industrial Revolution would have been expected less than once every 2,500 years, now occur in both countries on average every 12 years. In other words, they say, climate change has made them about 200 times more likely and about 3°C (degrees Celsius) more intense.
The newly released analysis, based on meteorological observations and fire risk metrics, "shows that events that would previously have been extremely rare have become much more frequent, making major fires more likely and more intense."
But it also states that in addition to global warming, other factors are increasing the frequency of fires, such as the migration of rural populations to urban areas in recent decades, agricultural abandonment and biomass accumulation (which increase the amount of available fuel), and insufficient management practices.
Preventive measures
The researchers recommend structured preventive measures and local land management (fuel management, grazing, controlled burns, mechanical clearing) and "ambitious public policies for adaptation and emissions mitigation" (energy transition).
Portugal lost more than 260,000 hectares in this year's fires, about 3% of the country's land area and almost three times the annual average. In Spain, more than 380,000 hectares were burned – almost five times the annual average.
The burned area in the Iberian Peninsula represents about two-thirds of the total burned area in Europe, which surpassed one million hectares in August for the first time since records began in 2006, the study authors point out.
For those of you who still deny there is human-caused global warming I suggest going to school and educating yourself about the subject, as I have. It is not the scientists who have independently shown global warming accelerating since the industrial revolution of the late 1800’s that is questionable. It is the convoluted efforts of some, who are not independent and whose studies are partly paid for by the fossil fuel industries, to come up with theories, such as the cloud theory (Will Happer), who are questionable. Those types of theories have NOT been corroborated by independent studies all over the world.
Extreme fossil fuel industry supported politics is the obstacle to the world’s addressing climate change. In the US, that is republicans and MAGA. In Portugal, that is CHEGA.
By JoeT from Algarve on 21 Sep 2025, 08:26
In the early sixties I used to live in Vendas Novas and Montemor-o-Novo, Alto Alentejo, Portugal, and then experienced daily temperatures often over 40 C! At that time nobody would talk about "climate change"! Now it's the justification for everything including the growing land mismanagement and corruption of "elected" politicians. Where I live, now over the ocean, or where I used to live, Portugal! Land mismanagement, criminal fires, and cut of extensive natural forest areas now exclusively planted with highly flammable trees such as eucaliptus and pines trees count for nothing!
By A L Fernandes from Other on 21 Sep 2025, 10:29
These so called experts declared late 90’s and early 2000 the polar ice would vanish , gulfstream would slow down and stop, ice of Antarctica would almost be gone, the water height would make Holland, Denmark and many other low ground countries disappear.
Absolutely nothing of these scaremongering messages happened. So please stop talk rubbish because reality is that they have all been wrong…but they spend tons of money on research only showing they were wrong and stupid. These vast sums could have been used on vaccination for children in poor countries instead. Would have made huge more value to society and the human kind.
Wake up folks. You are beeing fooled like a stupid and uneducated sheep flock by päwokeism that earns a lot of money on this crap
By Marty from Algarve on 22 Sep 2025, 11:19