Evacuees from the Camp Fire have congregated in tents and in their vehicles as they seek shelter in a Walmart parking lot in Chico, California, on 13 November 2018. Photo: Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times / TNS

Research shows where former Paradise residents went after town was incinerated in the Camp Fire – “People who didn’t have the wherewithal and couldn’t figure out what to do just ended up without anything,”

By Michael Finch II 20 November 2019 (The Sacramento Bee) – Like many, David Stromeyer and his wife made a terrifying escape from Paradise as the Camp Fire threatened their home a year ago. Fortunate than most, the Stromeyers found a rental within a week, joining the thousands of people who temporarily moved to the […]

The sun shines orange through through smoke from wildfires in Bolivia in September 2019. Photo: Adolfo Lino / Mongabay

Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia – Up to 18 million wild animals killed, including 500 rare jaguars – “Bolivia needs to rethink its agricultural strategy, as the future of its immeasurable biodiversity is at stake”

By Claire Wordley 1 October 2019 (Mongabay) – Despite over six weeks of firefighting, the infernos destroying Bolivia’s forests continue to spread. 5.3 million hectares (about 13.1 million acres) — an area larger than the whole of Costa Rica — have been destroyed, and about 40 percent of that area was forest. A perfect storm of factors — from […]

Map showing the coefficient of variation of precipitation (CVP) and its historical and projected changes in the continental United States. (A and B) Historical (1981–2010) CVP from PRISM for the cool and warm seasons, respectively. The bounding box in (A) indicates the Southwest region used for subsequent regional analyses. (C and D) PRISM-estimated historical change in CVP (∆CVPhistorical) from the early 20th century (1901–1930) to the late 20th/early 21st century (1981–2010) for the cool and warm seasons. Graphic: Dannenberg, et al., 2019 / Science Advances

Extreme rainfall variability driving tree growth reductions in western U.S. – “Key Southwest tree species may be at risk as precipitation extremes intensify”

By Rosemary Brandt 2 October 2019 (UA News) – As the Earth’s temperature warms, its hydrological cycle kicks into overdrive – wet years get wetter, and dry years get drier. According to a new University of Arizona-led study, these increased rainfall extremes could have dire consequences for the semi-arid forests of the western U.S. “In […]

Satellite view of smoke from forest fires in Indonesia, from 3 September 2019 to 12 September 2019. Photo: NASA Worldview

Thousands pray for rain in Indonesia as forests go up in smoke – “We’re doing everything we can, now we pray to Allah for the rain”

By Gayatri Suroyo and Jessica Damiana 11 September 2019 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Thousands of Indonesians prayed for rain in haze-hit towns on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo on Wednesday, as forest fires raged at the height of the dry season, the state Antara news agency reported. Fires have burnt through parts of Sumatra and […]

Landsat 8 acquired images of one of the larger fires in South America burning north of the Paraguay River near Puerto Busch on 25 August 2019 with IR Joshua Stevens NASA Earth Observatory

As Brazilian Amazon burns, fires in next-door Bolivia also wreak havoc – “I’ve never seen an environmental tragedy on this scale”

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Monica Machicao 25 August 2019 LA PAZ, Bolivia (The New York Times) – Amid growing international alarm over fires in Brazil’s Amazon region, neighboring Bolivia is facing devastating fires of its own, with flames devouring farmland and environmentally sensitive forests alike. In midst of the calamity, the country’s president, Evo Morales, suspended his […]

Comparison of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) trends over the globally vegetated areas between two periods of 1982–1998 and 1999–2015. (A) NDVI trend of 1982–1998. (B) NDVI trend of 1999–2015. (C) Differences of NDVI trend between 1999–2015 and 1982–1998. The insets (I) show the relative frequency (percent) distribution of significant decreases (Dec*; P < 0.05), decreases (Dec), increases (Inc), and significant increases (Inc*), and the insets (II) show the frequency distributions of the corresponding ranges. Graphic: Yuan, et al., 2019 / Science Advances

Atmospheric vapor deficit causing worldwide loss of vegetation

By Bob Yirka 15 August 2019 (Phys.org) – A large international team of researchers has found evidence of a connection between an increase in the atmospheric vapor deficit and worldwide vegetation loss. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their analysis of climate datasets and the correlation of an increase in […]

A firefighter monitors the progression of a wildfire at Amendoa, in Macao, Portugal, on 21 July 2019. Photo: Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty

Photo gallery: Wildfires rage in Central Portugal, July 2019

By Alan Taylor 23 July 2019 (The Atlantic) – Over the past few days in Portugal’s Castelo Branco region, strong winds and temperatures greater than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) have driven devastating wildfires through several villages, destroying structures and injuring 39 people. Nearly 2,000 firefighters worked to bring the three major fires largely […]

An array of Direct Air Capture (DAC) fans for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Photo: Carbon Engineering, Ltd

Can direct air capture technology save us from global warming? “By the end of the century, DAC could require the equivalent of over half of today’s global energy needs”

By Simon Levey 22 July 2019 (Grantham Institute) – “We’ve fallen in and out of love with outlandish technologies in the hope that they might save us from climate change,” says Dr Ajay Gambhir, Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “Some are just unicorns; […]

Satellite view of a wildfire in Qeqqata Kommunia, Greenland, 13 July 2019. Photo: Pierre Markuse / Copernicus EU

Photo gallery: Satellite view of “unprecedented” Arctic wildfires, July 2019

By Brian Kahn 18 July 2019 (Gizmodo) – Vast stretches of Earth’s northern latitudes are on fire right now. Hot weather has engulfed a huge portion of the Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland to Siberia. That’s helped create conditions ripe for wildfires, including some truly massive ones burning in remote parts of the region that […]

Last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia dies, eliminating chance of saving the species in the country

By Julia Jacobo 28 May 2019 (ABC News) – The last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia has died, eliminating the likelihood of saving the species in the country, according to animal conservationists. Less than 100 Sumatran rhinos are left in the world, according to the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA). They are scattered across the wild in Indonesia […]

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