Displaying items by tag: forest fire

This story was originally published by The Conversation.  Michael Wysession is Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Between the record-breaking global heat and extreme downpours, it’s hard to ignore that something unusual is going on with the weather in 2023.

People have been quick to blame climate change – and they’re right: human-caused global warming plays the biggest role. The weekslong heat wave that started in June 2023 in Texas, the U.S. Southwest and Mexico would have been virtually impossible without it, one study found.

However, the extremes this year are sharper than anthropogenic global warming alone would be expected to cause. September temperatures were far above any previous September, and around 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.75 degrees Celsius) above the preindustrial average, according to the European Union’s earth observation program.

July was Earth’s hottest month on record, also by a large margin, with average global temperatures more than half a degree Fahrenheit (a third of a degree Celsius) above the previous record, set just a few years earlier in 2019.

European Beaver  Image by Ralf Schick from Pixabay

NPR: California enlists beavers in battle against climate change

Forest areas with beaver dams are less prone to severe fire damage because of more consistent soil moisture and less extreme air aridity and temperature conditions. Read about it or listen to Randy Simon’s 2-minute beaver podcast on National Public Radio’s Earth Wise web page.

Western US in midst 20-year mega-drought

Read about it or listen to Randy Simon’s 2-minutedrought podcast on National Public Radio’s Earth Wise web page.