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The unprecedented conditions that have led to stem from a typical weather pattern that has been intensified by climate change. And the fire danger is expected to get worse in the future, CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli said on "CBS This Morning" Friday.

That extreme pattern has been made worse by warming temperatures, according to a study published in the journal Nature. The number of extreme heat days in Australia has increased from nearly zero in 1910 and 1920 to an average of about 15 per year now, and the average temperature of the country has increased by 3 degrees Fahrenheit over 100 years, Berardelli said.

CBS NEWS

That increased heat dries out the soil and bush, increasing the fire danger, which has soared over the past 40 years, especially in the southeast portion of Australia.

"So this is a situation where climate change is kind of the background," Berardelli said. "When you have a natural pattern that's causing extreme fire danger, climate change spikes it, it enhances it, it turns extreme fire danger into catastrophic fire danger."

Berardelli added that the fire risk is expected to get worse in places like Australia.

"Places that get a lot of rain will get more rain, places that are dry like Australia will continue to get drier and drier. It will get worse there," he said. "In the United States, in places like California, not every year is a bad fire year, but when it's dry for a couple of years in a row, it will progressively get worse, and this will become kind of a new norm, but only worse."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/australia-fires-how-climate-change-has-intensified-the-deadly-bushfires/