Australians have long associated summer with the acrid smell of smoke and images of singed koalas. As Prime Minister Tony Abbott said defensively, bush fires are “just a function of life in Australia.” But we have just had the hottest year on record. The real question is: How does global warming affect the probability and severity of fires?

Most scientists agree that higher temperatures are more likely to create drier soil, increase the length of the fire season, and create more dangerous fire conditions. So why are we so reluctant to accept this? And why are we regularly asked to trust poll-driven politicians more than data-driven scientists?

When the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said that there was clear evidence that heat waves in Asia, Europe and Australia were on the rise, and that fires are an example of the “doom and gloom” the world may be facing,” our prime minister said Ms. Figueres was “talking through her hat.” When Al Gore weighed in to suggest there was a link, Mr. Abbott called it “absolute hogwash.”

Professor Lesley Hughes of the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney is co-authoring a report on bush fires and climate change for the Climate Council, a nonprofit organization designed to educate Australians on such matters, to be released this month. She said an exhaustive study of the research had found that “Australia is a fire-prone country and it will get more fire prone as the climate changes.”

The research, she says, finds the overwhelmingly important factor is the temperature: “Hot dry weather greatly increases the risk of the fire becoming severe and uncontrollable once it is started.” The findings on what fuels these fires vary widely because they depend on complex predictions of rainfall: Some areas will have fewer fires since declining rainfall could mean less vegetation growth over the years, and thus less fuel availability.