By Jonathan Watts31 October 2014 (Rio de Janeiro) – The Amazon rainforest has degraded to the point where it is losing its ability to benignly regulate weather systems, according to a stark new warning from one of Brazil’s leading scientists. In a new report, Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science […]
ABSTRACT: Wildfire activity in boreal forests is anticipated to increase dramatically, with far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic consequences. Paleorecords are indispensible for elucidating boreal fire regime dynamics under changing climate, because fire return intervals and successional cycles in these ecosystems occur over decadal to centennial timescales. We present charcoal records from 14 lakes in the Yukon […]
(Natural Resources Canada) – In 2013, a total of 6,246 forest fires burned about 4.2 million hectares. The number of fires was about 10% lower than the 10-year average, yet the area burned was almost double the 10-year average. […] Quebec had an extremely active fire season, with about 1.8 million hectares burned – over […]
By Tim Naumetz30 September 2014 PARLIAMENT HILL (Hill Times) – One day after a world conference on climate change in New York City last week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to attend, his Cabinet minister for natural resources quietly tabled a report providing detailed background on the effect climate change is wreaking on Canada’s […]
By Trevor Hughes10 September 2014 DENVER (USA TODAY) – The iconic pine and aspen forests of the Rocky Mountains are dying off at an alarming rate thanks to conditions exacerbated by climate change — drought, insect infestations and wildfires — a new report says. Colorado alone could lose 45% of its aspen stands over the […]
By Julie Cart15 June 2014 Snake River Plain, Idaho (Los Angeles Times) – There’s not much anyone can tell Barry Sorensen about Idaho’s Big Desert that he doesn’t know. Sorensen, 72, and his brother have been running cattle in this sere landscape all their lives, and they’ve weathered every calamity man and nature have thrown […]
20 May 2014 (UCS) – The growing consequences of climate change are putting many of the country’s most iconic and historic sites at risk. From Ellis Island to the Everglades, Cape Canaveral to California’s César Chávez National Monument, these sites symbolize values that unite all Americans — patriotism, freedom, democracy, and more — and together […]
By Rong-Gong Lin II, Rosanna Xia, and Joseph Serna15 May 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – “May Gray” and “June Gloom” usually offer a cool respite for firefighters as they prepare for the summer and fall’s hot weather and heavy winds.. But for much of this month, May Gray has failed to materialize. Instead of the […]
By Greg Botelho, Michael Martinez, and Paul Vercammen15 May 2014 Carlsbad, California (CNN) – Thousands of homes, a university campus, a nuclear plant, a Legoland and parts of one of the military’s biggest and busiest bases: All have been evacuated due to a rare confluence of fast-moving wildfires scorching Southern California. Cal Fire Division Chief […]
6 April 2014 (The Siberian Times) – The past week saw record warm weather in western Siberian cities including Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, and Gorno-Altaisk. Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi warned a conference chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev: ‘The forest fire situation is tense in Russia this year. Due to a shortage of precipitation […]
