[Long-time Desdemona readers will recall that smoke from peatland fires killed many people in Moscow in 2010. Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow in heatwave, Heat probably killed thousands in Moscow –Des] By Kate Lamb26 October 2015 (Jakarta) – Raging forest fires across Indonesia are thought to be responsible for up to half a million cases […]
By Jim Robbins12 Oct 2015: Report (Yale e360) – The boreal forest wraps around the globe at the top of the Northern Hemisphere in North America and Eurasia. Also known as taiga or snow forest, this landscape is characterized by its long, cold and snowy winters. In North America it extends from the Arctic Circle […]
By Adam Wernick3 October 2015 (PRI) – Scientists are warning that intense wildfires in the northernmost areas of North America are changing the composition of the tundra ecosystem, degrading permafrost and contributing to a northward migration of trees, all of which have serious implications for the future of the climate. Warming air masses resulting from […]
[UPDATE: Des was suspicious of this number and emailed BLM. Turns out it’s a typo. The actual number is 9,276,416 acres burned year-to-date]. 10 October 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Just last week, the NIFC site computed the year-to-date acres burned for 2015 to be neck-and-neck with the most recent record year, 2006, at slightly above […]
By Joseph Serna10 October 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – A heat wave gripped Southern California on Friday, with one Ventura County community hitting the highest temperature reading since record-keeping began. A weather station near Camarillo Airport recorded 108 degrees, breaking the all-time high of 103 recorded on 23 September 1978. Elsewhere, triple-digit readings were recorded […]
9 October 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – 2015 is likely to be among the worst years for forest fires on record. A lot of this destruction is caused by fires that are intentionally set to clear forests for agriculture. In Sumatra and southern Borneo, rainforest and peatlands are burned to make room for palm oil plantations. […]
By Damian Carrington 7 October 2015 (The Guardian) – Fires raging across the forests and peatlands of Indonesia are on track to pump out more carbon emissions than the UK’s entire annual output, Greenpeace has warned. As well as fuelling global warming, the thick smoke choking cities in the region is likely to cause the […]
By Alison GillespieOctober 6, 2015 (smithsonian.com) – It isn’t hard to find the big tree they call Lady Liberty in Florida. It stands at the end of a boardwalk about 16 miles north of Orlando, along with many gums, oaks, and magnolias in the middle of a small public park. What is hard is photographing […]
By Doyle Rice25 September 2015 (USA TODAY) – The amount of land burned by wildfires in the U.S. this year has surpassed 9 million acres, according to data released Thursday by the National Interagency Fire Center. This is only the fourth time on record the country has reached the 9 million-acre mark, center spokesman Randall […]
By Sarah Kaplan 25 September 2015 (The Guardian) – Vast swathes of forest are so brittle and bone-dry that they burn up in an instant. A vicious wildfire, whipped up by hot, arid winds and moving faster than anything in recent memory, consumed tens of thousands of hectares in a matter of hours. Hundreds of […]
