Oregon State University
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists say human-caused climate change led to 15,000 additional deaths from wildfire air pollution in the continental United States during the 15-year period ending in 2020.
About 35% of the additional deaths attributed to climate change occurred in 2020, the year of the historic Labor Day fires in the Pacific Northwest as well as major blazes in California, Colorado and Arizona.
The study, led by an Oregon State University researcher and published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, is the first to quantify how many people are dying because a warming climate is causing fires to send increasing amounts of fine particulate matter into the air, especially in the West…