The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an image of thick wildfire smoke swirling over the state on 8 July 2019. Meteorologists in Fairbanks reported visibility had dropped to less than one mile due to smoke, and air quality sensors in the city reported skyrocketing levels of particulates in the air. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

Baked Alaska: State endures warmest month on record in July 2019

By Christopher C. Burt 9 August 2019 (Weather Underground) – July 2019 was the warmest month on record for the state of Alaska, smashing the previous record by almost one full degree Fahrenheit and leaving numerous local records for hottest day and warmest month in the superheated dust. Records for statewide average temperatures date back […]

Share of U.S. households with cost burdens (percent) by county in 2017. Data: Source: Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies tabulations of US Census Bureau, 2006–2017 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates using the Missouri Data Center. Graphic: Joint Center for Housing Studies / Harvard University

U.S. families go deep into debt to stay in the middle class – “What we may have to prepare for in the future is that buying a home may become a luxury”

By AnnaMaria Andriotis, Ken Brown, and Shane Shifflett 2 August 2019 (The Wall Street Journal) – The American middle class is falling deeper into debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Cars, college, houses and medical care have become steadily more costly, but incomes have been largely stagnant for two decades, despite a recent uptick. Filling […]

An artist, moved by what was left behind of his friend's home after a wild fire, used the site as a canvas. Shane Grammer said he was devastated to find out how many people he knows were left homeless by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. His friend, Shane Edwards, agreed to let him create a mural on what remained of his burned-down home. After three hours, Grammer had created a striking image of a beautiful woman that is giving people hope on 4 January 2019. Photo: Inside Edition

“Sticker shock” for California wildfire areas as insurance rates double, and policies are dropped – “It’s time to address the impact that more severe weather is having on Americans instead of fighting about climate change”

By Dale Kasler, Ryan Sabalow, and Phillip Reese 18 July 2019 (The Sacramento Bee) – Jennifer Burt knows she lives in a fire-prone community. That’s why she’s done everything she can to fire-proof her home in Meadow Vista, in the bushy, densely wooded Placer County foothills, even installing a sprinkler system on the roof. Yet […]

U.S. Army Major General John King surveys flood damage from Hurricane Florence on 20 September 2018 in Lillington, North Carolina. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

White House blocked report on climate change and national security – “Politics intruded on science and intelligence. That’s why I quit my job as an analyst for the State Department.”

By Rod Schoonover 30 July 2019 (The New York Times) – Ten years ago, I left my job as a tenured university professor to work as an intelligence analyst for the federal government, primarily in the State Department but with an intervening tour at the National Intelligence Council. My focus was on the impact of […]

Daily sea ice conventration analysis for 27 July 2019. Graphic: NWS Alaska Sea Ice Program

Record-breaking European heat wave heads north, massive melting likely in Arctic – “This actually primes things for more sea ice loss later, on the order of weeks”

By Bob Henson 29 July 2019 (Weather Underground) – Over the next few days, meltwater will cascade across the Greenland Ice Sheet, and sea ice will dissolve into the Arctic Ocean in amounts that could be unprecedented for late July and early August. The same air mass that led to the sharpest, hottest heat wave ever […]

Difference in water cycle intensity in the U.S., 1945-2014. Data: data from Huntington, Thomas, et al., 2018 / Journal of Hydrology. Graphic: Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

Water cycle speeding up over much of U.S. – “As the planet warms, we anticipate that the warmer air, which holds more moisture, will lead to more evaporation and precipitation”

By Kasha Patel 26 July 2019 (NASA) – Water is everywhere on Earth, and it is a unique molecule that is critical for life. Where, when, and how it moves—the water cycle—is equally critical. Water falls over Earth’s surface as rain, snow, or ice. From there, it evaporates and returns to the atmosphere; seeps into […]

Wildfire at about 64°N in the Mirninsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, 22 July 2019. Photo: Copernicus Sentinel-2 / Pierre Markuse

More than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst-ever fire season – Smoke plumes from huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska visible from space – “These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares”

By Edward Helmore 26 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space. The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]

An early morning rower glides through the glare of the rising sun on the Potomac River on Saturday, 20 July 2019. The Potomac River, which flows through the U.S. capital Washington, D.C., hit a record high temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius) over the weekend following a major heat wave. Photo: J. David Ake / AP

Potomac River hits record high temperature of 34°C (94°F) after weeks of relentless heat

24 July 2019 (AFP) – The Potomac River, which flows through the US capital Washington, hit a record high temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius) over the weekend—as warm as bathwater—following a major heat wave. The previous highs came in the summers of 2011 and 2012, though record keeping began only in 2007. […]

Age-specific death rates for persons aged 25–44, by Hispanic origin and race, United States, 2000–2017. Graphic: Curtin and Arias, 2019 / CDC

Death rates increasing for U.S. adults aged 25 to 44: CDC report

24 July 2019 (ABC News) – Death rates are on the rise for young and middle-aged U.S. adults, with white and black people experiencing higher mortality than Hispanic people, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Tuesday. Between 2012 and 2017, the rates for white and black people […]

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