Katarina Zimmer writes: As we hang far above the ground on a sunny October day, it would be easy to focus on the blue crests of hills and the small towns tucked in between. But Richard Peters, who’s with me inside a metal gondola mounted onto the maneuverable arm of a crane, points me instead to the tree canopy below, flushed with the gold and copper shades of fall. “That guy is definitely on his way to die,” he says…
The New York Times reports: Wildfires are getting worse. Parts of the United States, scientists say, are experiencing wildfires three times as often — and four times as big — as they were 20 years ago. This summer alone, smoke from Canadian blazes turned North American skies an unearthly orange, “fire whirls” were seen in the Mojave Desert and raging flames in Maui led to disaster. Records of the distant past can reveal what once drove increased fire activity and…
The Washington Post reports: Wildfires continue to rage in Canada, burning twice as much land as any previous season, an area equivalent to Alabama or nine Connecticuts. The blazes have charred nearly 33 million acres (13.3 million hectares) across the country, with hundreds of large fires still burning. The situation is not improving. Fires from coast-to-coast have stretched firefighting forces thin, requiring help from the Canadian military. Several massive conflagrations in the Northwest Territories have imperiled a number of towns…
Caroline Mimbs Nyce writes: To see fire weather—hot, dry, windy conditions—in Hawaii this time of year is not unusual, Ian Morrison, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Honolulu forecast office, told me. The NWS had issued a red-flag warning for the area, which indicates to local residents and officials alike that wildfire potential is high. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the majority of Maui is also abnormally dry or in drought; the western side in particular was parched,…
The Guardian reports: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the environment minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian. The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point. The exact figure, which is based on the Deter satellite alert system, will be released in the coming days, but independent analysts described the preliminary data…
BBC News reports: The oceans have hit their hottest ever recorded temperature as they soak up warmth from climate change, with dire implications for our planet’s health. The average daily global sea surface temperature beat a 2016 record this week, according to the EU’s climate change service Copernicus. It reached 20.96C (69.73F) – far above the average for this time of year. Oceans are a vital climate regulator. They soak up heat, produce half Earth’s oxygen and drive weather patterns….
CNN reports: Pedro Garcia nurses a plate of seeds on his lap. “This is my legacy,” he says, tenderly picking up the seed of a mountain almond – a tree which can grow up to 60 meters (200 feet) tall and is a favored nesting spot for the endangered great green macaw. Aged 57, Garcia has worked on his seven-hectare plot, El Jicaro, in northeast Costa Rica’s Sarapiqui region for 36 years. In his hands it has turned from bare…
GrrlScientist writes: Tragically, the global mass extinction event that we find ourselves in the midst of will be even worse than originally predicted, according to a recent study (ref). The international team of scientists came to their conclusion after analyzing population trends data for more than 71,000 animal species — including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects — from around the world to see how their numbers have changed since record-keeping first began. Generally, scientists agree that an extinction…
ABC News (Au) reports: This winter has confirmed what scientists had feared — the sea ice around Antarctica is in sharp decline, with experts now concerned it may not recover. Earlier this year, scientists observed an all-time low in the amount of sea ice around the icy continent, following all-time lows in 2016, 2017 and 2022. Usually, the ice has been able to recover in winter, when Antarctica is reliably dark and cold. But this year is different. For the…
Water and sediment pour off the melting margin of the Greenland ice sheet. Jason Edwards/Photodisc via Getty Images By Paul Bierman, University of Vermont and Tammy Rittenour, Utah State University About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea level was much higher then, between 20 and 40…
Fred Pearce writes: Mike Lohrengel looks up in awe at trees he has known for 30 years. “This is one of the most beautiful places I know. This forest has it all: the most species, the most diversity. Many trees I know individually. Look at this one behind us. It’s got a split way up there. I’ll never forget that tree till I die.” It is a love affair, for sure. But Lohrengel is no tree-hugger, out to preserve a…
The New York Times reports: In July 1945, as J. Robert Oppenheimer and the other researchers of the Manhattan Project prepared to test their brand-new atomic bomb in a New Mexico desert, they knew relatively little about how that mega-weapon would behave. On July 16, when the plutonium-implosion device was set off atop a hundred-foot metal tower in a test code-named “Trinity,” the resultant blast was much stronger than anticipated. The irradiated mushroom cloud also went many times higher into…
Zack Savitsky writes: In 2017, a team of scientists from Germany trekked to Chile to investigate how living organisms sculpt the face of the Earth. A local ranger guided them through Pan de Azúcar, a roughly 150-square-mile national park on the southern coast of the Atacama Desert, which is often described as the driest place on Earth. They found themselves in a flat, gravelly wasteland interrupted by occasional hills, where hairy cacti reached their arms toward a sky that never…
The New York Times reports: This week’s flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction even miles from any river, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning. And the United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat. The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse: They allow the air to hold more…
Rowan Moore Gerety writes: If it weren’t for the Colorado River, Albuquerque wouldn’t exist — at least, not as a city of half a million. Which is interesting, because the city itself is nowhere near the river: The Colorado and its tributaries flow on the opposite side of the Continental Divide from New Mexico’s largest city. The thing that joins the city to its water — the thing that allows Albuquerque to exist, it’s no exaggeration to say — is…
Paul Hockenos writes: The mesmerizing scene along the banks of Munich’s lime-green Isar River on a recent summer afternoon made me, an out-of-towner, quiver with envy. Clusters of students, off-duty office workers, families and nude sunbathers were sprawled out on blankets with bottled beer and light meals. Every so often, a swimmer or tuber passed by, carried by the swift current. In 2000, before the climate crisis accelerated, turning summers into slogs punctuated by a slew of heat records, the…