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How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox [1]

['Christopher Flavelle', 'Manuela Andreoni', 'More About Christopher Flavelle', 'More About Manuela Andreoni']

Date: 2023-08-10

The fires in Hawaii would be shocking anywhere — killing at least 36 people, in one of the deadliest wildfires in the United States in modern history. But the devastation is especially striking because of where it happened: In a state defined by its lush vegetation, a far cry from the dry landscape normally associated with fire threats.

The explanation is as straightforward as it is sobering: As the planet heats up, no place is protected from disasters.

The story of this week’s blaze arguably began decades ago, when Hawaii started experiencing a long-term decline in average annual rainfall. Since 1990, rainfall at selected monitoring sites has been 31 percent lower in the wet season, and 6 percent lower in the dry season, according to work published in 2015 by researchers at the University of Hawaii and the University of Colorado.

There are multiple reasons for that change, according to Abby Frazier, a climatologist at Clark University who has researched Hawaii.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/climate/hawaii-fires-climate-change.html

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