Drew Shindell, Duke University from (The Conservation) As the eastern U.S. and Canada reeled from days of thick wildfire smoke in early June 2023, millions of people faced the reality of climate change for the first time. Shocking images of New York under apocalyptic orange skies left many people glued to air quality indices and wondering whether it was safe to go outside. What they…
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Christopher T. Migliaccio, University of Montana (from The Conservation) Smoke from more than 100 wildfires burning across Canada has been turning skies hazy in North American cities far from the flames. We asked Chris Migliaccio, a toxicologist at the University of Montana who studies the impact of wildfire smoke on human health, about the health risks people can face when smoke blows in from distant…
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Shuang-Ye Wu, University of Dayton (from The Conversation) The summer of 2022 started with a historic flood in Montana, brought on by heavy rain and melting snow, that tore up roads and caused large areas of Yellowstone National Park to be evacuated. It ended with a record-breaking heat wave in California and much of the West that pushed the power grid to the breaking point,…
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Wildfires in the western United States are becoming more intense and are burning larger areas. At the same time, heavy, extreme rainfall is becoming more frequent and intense. When these happen in the same area within a short period of time, they “can cause dramatically more damage to communities than one of the events alone.” Research indicates that the combination of extreme wildfires and extreme…
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Is there a connection between extreme weather events (torrential rain, polar cold, heatwaves, extended droughts, hail, hurricanes, tornadoes, and more) and a changing climate? Yes. Are extreme weather events happening more frequently? Yes. Are these extreme weather events having a greater impact–-deaths, economic losses, human migration, loss of plant and animal species and even extinction, worsening human physical and mental health, and more. Yes, again….
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Our climate is changing, and rapidly. The evidence is all around us. One result of our changing climate is the increased frequency of weather and weather-related extremes across the Earth–stifling and dangerous heatwaves, prolonged and profound drought, torrential rain leading to deadly and destructive flooding, inexorable sea level rise, explosive wildfires and then smoke affecting skies, air quality, and health thousands of miles away, lives…
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