News Climate

Climate ‘teleconnections’ may link droughts and fires across continents

New research could help countries forecast and collaborate to deal with dry spells and fires

An opaque photo of a wildfire overtop an opaque satellite image of Africa.

The El Niño climate pattern across the equatorial Pacific Ocean typically causes rainfall to decrease and wildfires to become more frequent in tropical Africa (shown).

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

By Nikk Ogasa

Large-scale climate patterns that can impact weather across thousands of kilometers may have a hand in synchronizing multicontinental droughts and stoking wildfires around the world, two new studies find.