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Wildfires burned 384 Mha of land in 2023, the highest since 2017 but 5% lower than the 2001–2022 average. These fires emitted an estimated 2,524 Tg C, 30% of which came from Canada’s record fire season.
The fire ban implemented during burning seasons in the Brazilian Amazon helped reduce the number of fires in 2019 but proved largely ineffective in 2020 and 2021, according to an analysis of observed fires activity and model simulations of expected fires in the absence of a ban over 2019–2021.
Wildfires have increased in frequency and intensity due to climate change and have had severe impacts on the built environment worldwide. Moving forward, models should take inspiration from epidemic network modeling to predict damage to individual buildings and understand the impact of different mitigations on the community vulnerability in a network setting.
Wildfires burned 384 Mha of land in 2023, the highest since 2017 but 5% lower than the 2001–2022 average. These fires emitted an estimated 2,524 Tg C, 30% of which came from Canada’s record fire season.
Ambient temperature increases occurring under climate change could induce livestock heat stress, resulting in lambing losses and an estimated economic burden of up to Australian $166 million per annum to the Australian sheep industry.
Self-supervised learning offers a promising way of downscaling the total water storage anomaly data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, contributing to a better understanding of the impact of natural climate variability and human activities at basin scales.
Learning from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence offers valuable insights into disaster recovery. Carmine Galasso and Eyitayo Opabola delve into the intricacies of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) concept, underscoring the importance of recovery and reconstruction efforts toward a future that is not only more resilient but also more sustainable and equitable.