Is climate change responsible for Black Friday/ Black Summer?

We cannot say that climate change was entirely responsible for the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019/20, but we can certainly say that it played a very important role.

2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record. The combination of hot and dry weather leads to high fire risk because it produces fuel (plant material) that is exceptionally dry and easy to ignite, and it also produces extreme fire weather (hot, windy) that makes it difficult to fight the fires.

These extreme climatic conditions in 2019/20 were strongly influenced by climate change. However, the fires were also influenced by climate events that occur naturally from time to time. An example of this is that the fires occurred during an El Nino event, which is a natural climate pattern that leads to hotter and dryer weather in Australia. The effects of climate change, like hotter weather, made the natural El Nino event much more extreme.

To summarise, the Black Summer Bushfires occurred during the hottest and driest year on record in Australia, which is largely caused by climate change. Even though there were other naturally occurring cyclical climate events involved (like El Nino), the fires would have been more manageable without human-caused climate change.