with intense wildfires blazing across Canada blowing smoke hundreds of miles away here in Jersey questions are now being raised about the role climate change plays and what's all happening and how it changes to our environment may allow the future smoke events like this one to occur again for that and more Rutgers climate Institute director Anthony Brockley joins me Anthony so how does something like this happen to get what's happened over the last few days it's taken an unusual combination of things first of all we've had forest fires in Eastern Canada generally speaking these wildfires tend to happen in places that are drier more in the western part of North America but because of an unusually dry weather pattern in Canada we have had fires in Quebec about 600 miles north of us we have also had a weather pattern that has brought that smoke directly south into our area Anthony I I what I want to focus on is really how climate change is contributing to the wildfires and impacts on our region will we see more of this in the future climate change does make conditions more conducive to wildfires because the increase in temperature makes it easier for the fuels that are responsible for these fires to dry out so in a warmer climate we will have more wildfires that doesn't necessarily mean that events like this one will become commonplace here in the eastern United States because we expect to still see wildfires more common in the western part of the United States Anthony what type of wildfires are able to create this like how big does this have to be well the the right now what we have are a large number of fires in Canada so altogether they're covering a relatively large area even though it's not one gigantic fire but we've had just the right kind of weather pattern and a very persistent weather pattern that has taken the smoke from those fires allowed it to move South into New Jersey and to remain relatively close to the ground and that's why it got so Smoky yesterday well it's interesting because you mentioned weather patterns so I want to focus on that for a second I it seems like this was the almost like The Perfect Storm why was this able to happen and what do we know about how air currents might be changing due to climate change they're the the source of this pattern uh is is not something that we can completely put our finger on however what we can say is that the same pattern that produced warm and dry conditions over much of Canada during the month of May making things conducive to wildfires brought that smoke Southward into New Jersey the pattern has been slow moving it's been locked in for a period of time and that has enabled this to happen there is some research that suggests that these slow-moving weather patterns will be more common as a result of climate change but in my view the jury is still out on that scientifically I know that you don't have a crystal ball right and we know that there are there are some things that still remain unknown but I mean how can we stop this how can we slow this down how can we not you know prevent another event like this happening in the future or or can't we well I think a lot of a lot of what we see here is is beyond our control however when we talk about the conditions being more conducive to fires because of a warming climate that is something that is within our control so efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere will enable the climate to warm less than it would if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the rate we have in the past Anthony thank you for joining me to discuss this and kind of break it all down my pleasure [Music]