(CNN) The climate crisis is going to raise the risk that Ebola will spread farther and reach areas previously unaffected by the virus, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The study found that the climate crisis will bring a 1.75 to 3.2-fold increase in the rate at which the deadly virus spills over from animals to humans by 2070.

There will be an increased risk of more devastating outbreaks in areas of Africa that haven't seen outbreaks before under all of the climate warming scenarios the researchers looked at, including if humans cut their carbon emissions significantly or only slightly. Higher temperatures and slower social and economic development would lead to greater risk.

In west and central Africa, where outbreaks have traditionally clustered, outbreaks would happen more frequently and spread farther, via airlines, to previously unaffected areas, the researchers suggested. Using the current network of airline flights in their model, the study suggests that there is a high risk of Ebola spreading to China, Russia, India, Europe and the United States.

The first Ebola outbreak was identified in 1976 and there have been 23 outbreaks recognized since . There's still more research to be done on exactly how these outbreaks start, but scientists suspect Old World fruit bats that carry the disease may be at least in part be to blame. They also believe contact between humans, great apes and duikers -- a small brown antelope -- may be connected to these outbreaks.