Minnesota air quality plunges as smoke plume from Canada fires descends – ‘The smoke we’re smelling used to be trees in western Canada a few days ago’

By Paul Huttner 6 July 2015 (Minnesota Public Radio) – What next, locusts? Monday morning’s downpours (and flash floods in the east metro) got our attention early. Just when you thought it was safe, the core of the dense smoke plume from over 600 wildfires in Alaska and western Canada arrived. The dense white smoke […]

Alaska and Canada wildfires, 6 July 2015

Total fires in 2015 Alaska: 640Canada: 4526 Total acres burned in 2015 Alaska: 2,950,572 acresCanada: 5,315,200 acres (2,150,971 ha) Alaska: AICC Situation Report (Predictive Services – Intelligence/Reports) Canada: Current Fire Data Graphs Canada: National Wildland Fire Situation Report Global Daily Active Fire Products  and Interactive Fire Maps Technorati Tags: Alaska,Canada,North America,wildfire,forest fire,drought,heat wave,global warming,climate change

Photo gallery: Smoke plumes from British Columbia wildfires darken skies over Vancouver and Victoria

By Susan Wyatt5 July 2015 (KING 5 News) – Smoke from wildfires in British Columbia was streaming into Western Washington on Sunday, causing an eerie yellow cast to the skies. More than 50 new wildfires were sparked over this weekend alone. Officials with the Paradise Fire said local 911 dispatchers in the Port Angeles area […]

Armed Forces called in as thousands flee Saskatchewan wildfires – Province-wide wildfires blanket B.C. communities in smoke

5 July 2015 (CBC News) – More than 50 new wildfires have sprung up across British Columbia over the weekend, putting people out of their homes or on evacuation alert, resulting in several communities declaring states of emergency. Smoke from the fires cast an early morning haze over Vancouver and an eerie pall over Victoria […]

Worsening fine particulate matter pollution in Asia outweighs improvements in North America and Europe – Global exposures increasing by 2.1 percent per year

By Adam Voiland24 June 2015 (NASA) – People living in polluted areas inhale vast quantities of fine particulate matter, which is called PM2.5 because the pollution particles have diameters less than 2.5 micrometers. Such particles are so small—30 times smaller than the width of a human hair—that they can easily infiltrate human respiratory and circulatory […]

Turkish glaciers have shrunk by half since 1970

By Laura Rocchio2 July 2015 (NASA) – Researchers and citizens have known for some time that Turkey’s glaciers are shrinking. Now scientists have calculated the losses and found that more than half of the ice cover in this mountainous country has vanished since the 1970s. A team of researchers from Ege University (Turkey) and NASA’s […]

Carbon Counter: China not a ‘renewables powerhouse’

3 July 2015 (Carbon Counter) – A new piece at the Conversation claims that China is an emerging “renewables powerhouse”. And it is a classic example of twisting the facts to suit your narrative. It is also a classic example of the repeated failure to use meaningful statistics when comparing countries. Everything wrong with it, […]

Pink salmon struggle as freshwater becomes acidic

By Niina Heikkinen and ClimateWire30 June 2015 (ClimateWire) – Pink salmon are providing researchers with sobering hints to how carbon dioxide-induced acidity could affect freshwater fish species by the end of the 21st century. A study published yesterday in Nature Climate Change showed that early exposure to high levels of CO2 during the larval stage […]

BP to pay record $18.7 billion to settle claims in Gulf oil spill – ‘The largest settlement with a single entity in American history’

By Margaret Cronin Fisk, Laurel Calkins, and Del Quentin Wilber2 July 2015 (Bloomberg) – BP will pay a record $18.7 billion to resolve claims by the U.S. and five states along the Gulf of Mexico related to the 2010 oil spill. The payments will be spaced out over as long as 18 years, according to […]

As Alaska burns, Anchorage sets new records for heat and lack of snow

By Angela Fritz 2 July 2015 (Washington Post) – Hot and dry conditions in Alaska have been toppling records over the past few months — many of which have been held for decades. And now, with two million acres burned already, 2015 appears well on its way to becoming the worst fire season on record […]

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