begin quote from:

Scientists say fingerprints of global warming are on West Coast wildfires

As devastating as the fires raging out West have been, far worse disasters could be on the horizon

The fires raging out West are unprecedented. They're also a mere preview of what climate change has in store

By Drew Kann and Brandon Miller, CNN

Updated 1:13 PM ET, Fri September 11, 2020

North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk

Air quality remains poor throughout the West

Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing

See expert's response to viewer who won't take Covid-19 vaccine

Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots

Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?

CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security

Former DHS official on Trump revealing secret intel: This is damning

Filmmaker shares video of dangerous drive through North Complex Fire

Now Playing

'It looks like the apocalypse:' See wildfire smoke turn San Francisco's sky orange

College students host party despite testing positive for Covid-19

Rudy Giuliani: What they are doing to this city could be fatal

Oregon resident: We didn't think it'd get this devastating

Dr. Gupta to administration adviser: Why rush a vaccine?

'Pathetic': Pelosi on Trump tweet blasting Dems over bill

4 Houston police officers involved in fatal shooting fired

Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?

North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk

Air quality remains poor throughout the West

Trump hosts rally with few masks and no social distancing

See expert's response to viewer who won't take Covid-19 vaccine

Trump team grilling local election officials about mail-in ballots

Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?

CNN Exclusive: Biden says Trump has 'no conception' of national security

Former DHS official on Trump revealing secret intel: This is damning

Filmmaker shares video of dangerous drive through North Complex Fire

'It looks like the apocalypse:' See wildfire smoke turn San Francisco's sky orange

College students host party despite testing positive for Covid-19

Rudy Giuliani: What they are doing to this city could be fatal

Oregon resident: We didn't think it'd get this devastating

Dr. Gupta to administration adviser: Why rush a vaccine?

'Pathetic': Pelosi on Trump tweet blasting Dems over bill

4 Houston police officers involved in fatal shooting fired

Blitzer to Fauci: Who should we trust, you or President Trump?

North Carolina voter: If Trump could just not talk

(CNN)Entire towns have been burned to the ground.

Thousands have been forced to flee their homes.

And apocalyptic scenes played out in San Francisco, as the city was blanketed in smoke so thick it blocked out the sun.

The scale of the fires burning in the Western US right now are unprecedented.

Content by RVshare

Conquer cabin fever safely with RVshare this summer

From simple camping trips to coast-to-coast explorations, the rentable fleet of 100,000 RVs means you can have outdoor adventures without risking you and your loved ones’ health.

With their homes in ashes, residents share harrowing tales of survival after massive wildfires kill 15

More than 3 million acres have burned in California alone, with three of the five largest fires in state history still burning all at once, along with huge swaths of Oregon and Washington. Still, much of the West is only now entering what is typically the most active part of the region's fire season.

To scientists, the fingerprints of global warming on these wildfires -- and so many other disasters, from the fires that scorched Australia to the hurricanes that have slammed the US -- are clear.

In this aerial view from a drone, a mobile home park destroyed by fire is shown on September 10, 2020 in Phoenix, Oregon. Hundreds of homes in the town have been lost due to wildfire.

And as devastating as they have been, far worse disasters could be on the horizon.

How bad it gets depends on what we as humans do to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions, said Michael Mann, the director of Penn State University's Earth System Science Center.

"By some measure, it's clear that 'dangerous climate change' has already arrived," Mann said in response to emailed questions from CNN. "It's a matter of how bad we're willing to let it get."

How climate change influences wildfires

Though the scale of destruction is hard to fathom, climate scientists say we should not be surprised.

"It's shocking to see the impacts, but not scientifically surprising," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research told CNN on Tuesday. "This is in line with essentially every prediction for what could happen this year and the trends we're seeing over years and decades."

A burned residence smolders during the Bear fire, part of the North Lightning Complex fires, in unincorporated Butte County, California on September 9, 2020.

Scientists have warned for years that fire seasons like this could come to pass, and that the more we humans heat up the planet, the more we are increasing the odds in favor of the hot, dry conditions conducive to fires.

So far, the planet has warmed by a global average of roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius since the 1880s, with human activity responsible for the bulk of that increase.

This warming is clear in long-term temperature graphs for the state of California, such as this one below from the nonprofit environmental monitoring organization Berkeley Earth, which shows that August temperatures in the state have climbed steadily over the last 150 years.

This past August was the warmest on record for the state of California, according to NOAA, and each of the past six years were at least 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the historical average.

In California's smoke-filled horizon, it's become hard to breathe

"That couple of degrees of [average] warming over decades ... you don't notice it as much, but it's still there lurking in the background, sucking extra moisture out of the vegetation and the soil," Swain said.

According to the National Climate Assessment, a major "state-of-science" review of climate change and its projected impacts on the US, additional warming of about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) can be expected over the next few decades regardless of future emissions.

By the second half of the century, the uncertainty range for the amount of warming grows tremendously, as so much will depend on potential cut backs in carbon emissions in the near future.

The future depends on 'what we choose to do'

Lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders during the Covid-19 pandemic did result in the largest drop in greenhouse gas emissions in recorded human history.

But scientists expect the reductions will be temporary, and the policies that brought emissions down -- i.e. forcing people to stay home -- are not sustainable.

Global temperatures could exceed crucial 1.5 Celsius target in the next five years

And despite the brief dip in heat-trapping gas emissions, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are still the highest they've been in at least 800,000 years.

Scientists say the impacts of climate change are growing worse before our very eyes.

"If you're in California, or on the Gulf Coast, or in Puerto Rico, Texas, the Carolinas, or Iowa, you've seen the devastating consequences of climate change already," Mann said.

Still, he says there is time left to flatten the curve of global warming impacts, but the longer we wait, the steeper that curve gets.

"So much depends on what we choose to do," Mann said. "If we keep planetary warming below 1.5 Celsius, which is still possible given concerted climate action, we can keep climate change impacts within our adaptive capacity. If we don't, we will likely exceed it."