A recent study, led by climatologist Ben Riddell-Young and his research team, has demonstrated how the global increase in the number of wildfires is closely linked to climate change. The analysis, published in the journal Nature, was based on the study of air bubbles trapped in the Antarctic ice sheet.

Analysis of ice dating back 67,000 years reveals the relationship between climate change and wildfires

The researchers extracted a series of ice cores, which allowed them to reconstruct the composition of the air going back 67,000 years. "The initial goal," Riddell-Young explained, "was to determine the causes of increases in methane emissions during periods of abrupt climate change over the course of the last ice age." The scientists also analysed subsequent layers of ice in chronological terms, and observed phases during which "the isotopic composition of methane changed far beyond what can be explained by contributions from geological sources." In other words, the gas did not originate from a natural source and could therefore only have been the result of forest fires.

nature ✓ @Nature

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Nature research paper: Abrupt changes in biomass burning during the last glacial period go.nature.com/3W4QAGl

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By cross-referencing the data, researchers realised that these emissions increases coincided precisely with periods of abrupt climate change — not necessarily in the sense of a rise in global average temperature, but also in terms of drastic drops in precipitation, which can render vegetation dry and therefore prone to burning easily.

What is particularly alarming is the fact that, at present, both conditions exist in Earth's climate: not only are heatwaves linked to global warming multiplying, but prolonged drought conditions are also affecting an ever-growing number of regions — triggering devastating fires even in the depths of winter, as in the case of those currently ravaging California.

Another project will allow scientists to go back 1.2 million years: "A historic moment"

The study of ice sheets is proving fundamental in this regard for understanding the history of the climate. Recently, another project, named Beyond Epica (also in Antarctica, supported by the European Commission and coordinated in part by the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche and the università Ca' Foscari di Venezia) succeeded in penetrating 2.8 kilometres into the ice sheet. This made it possible to extract ice cores 1.2 million years old — the deepest drilling ever carried out.

Beyond EPICA @OldestIce

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The Beyond EPICA ice core drilling has finally reached the bedrock at a depth of 2800 m: this is a huge success for our project and for ice core science! We have strong indications that 1.2 million years of climate record are stored in the uppermost 2480 m of ice.
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Analysing these samples will yield crucial information on the presence of CO2, methane and other gases, and will therefore allow for a more precise understanding of the evolution of the planet's climate and of the current anthropogenic impact on global warming. "We have marked a historic moment for climate and environmental science," commented Carlo Barbante, a professor at the università Ca' Foscari. "This is a result made possible by the extraordinary collaboration of several European research institutes and by the work of scientists and logistics staff in the field over the last ten years."

The ice cores will now be transported to Europe via a complex system capable of maintaining a cold chain at -50 degrees Celsius. At that point, the analyses will begin: like a time machine capable of taking us back more than a million years.