would be shocking anywhere – killing at least 53 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.
There are multiple reasons for that change, according to Dr Abby Frazier, a climatologist at Clark University who has researched Hawaii. All three changes are probably related to rising temperatures, Dr Frazier said. “There’s likely a climate change signal in everything we see,” she said. In a paper published in 2019, University of Hawaii researchers wrote that 2016 was warmer than the 100-year mean by 0.92 deg C, and temperatures had been inching up by 0.19 deg C per decade at the Mauna Loa Observatory.