• UGI USER
  • Sep 25, 2023
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Wildfire due to Climate Change

Relevance

  • GS Paper 1: Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone, etc.
  • GS Paper 3: Disaster and disaster management.
  • Tags: #gspaper1 #gspaper3 #upsc #mainsexams #wildfire #climatechange #competitiveexams.

Why in the news?

Orora Technologies, or OroraTech, a German startup has raised an initial funding round that will enable it to begin launching a constellation of satellites to detect wildfires due to climate change.

Data on Climate Change

  • The UN Environment Programme predicts up to a 14% increase in extreme wildfires by 2030 and 50% increase by 2100 due to climate change.
  • Even with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold, a 40% greater area is expected to burn in the Mediterranean.

How climate change is responsible for Wildfire?

  • The role of climate change in heightening wildfirerisks cannot be ignored, with the world being 1.2°C warmer on average than in pre-industrial times.
  • More frequent heat waves and droughts in the Mediterranean regionhave made the environment more fire-prone, leading to greater disaster risk.

How Artificial Intelligence is a game changer?

  • Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke.
  • A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space.
  • And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked along with climate and geospatial data.

Recent incidents of Wildfires

  • Wildfires fuelled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fuelling demand for new solutions.
  • One of the most destructive and recent forest fires, a record rate of 73,000 fires has been detected at the Amazon rainforestthis year by Brazil’s space research centre.
  • In February 2019, massive forest fires broke out in numerous places across the Bandipur National Park of the Karnataka state in India. An estimated 10,920 acres were burnt in five days.
  • Wild bushfires in Australia which burnt 916 homes and 363 more have been damaged. These fires have been especially severe in the New South Wales and Victoria.

 

What is lightning?

Lightning is a rapid and massive electrical discharge that takes place between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Scientists believe that for lightning to occur, positive and negative charges must separate within a cloud.

How does it occur?

 

· According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), when the water droplets in the bottom part of the cloud are moved upwards, where the much colder atmosphere freezes them into small ice crystals.

· As these small ice crystals continue to go up, they gain more mass and eventually become so heavy that they start to fall down to Earth.

· This causes a system in which ice crystals going down collides with the water vapors coming up, leading to the accumulation of positive charges on the top of the cloud and negative changes gathering at the base, while the atmosphere between them in the cloud acts as an insulator.

· When the positive and negative charges grow large enough, their strength overpowers the insulating properties of the cloud. As a result, the two kinds of charges meet with each other and produce lightning.

· Although most of the lightning takes place within the clouds, sometimes it is directed towards Earth also.

· With the base of the cloud becoming negatively charged, positive charges start accumulating on tall objects, like trees, poles and buildings.

Source: The Hindu, Indian Express, UNEP.

Mains Question

What are man-made disasters? How wildfires are triggered by climate change. discuss the usability of AI in addressing the issue of climate change.