By Adam Voiland1 August 2015 (NASA) – In mid-July, Alaska seemed to be headed toward its worst wildfire year on record. But then a period of cool, wet weather arrived later in the month and calmed several large fires. Government officials also trimmed tens of thousands of acres from earlier estimates of burned area after […]
By Jeff Chiu and Haven Daley1 August 2015 LOWER LAKE, California (Associated Press) – Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground. Twenty-three large […]
By Keith Ridler27 July 2015 BOISE, Idaho (Associated Press) – More than a quarter million sockeye salmon returning from the ocean to spawn are either dead or dying in the Columbia River and its tributaries due to warming water temperatures. Federal and state fisheries biologists say the warm water is lethal for the cold-water species […]
By Antonina Koshcheeva and Derek Lambie23 June 2015 (The Siberian Times) – Hot weather, thunderstorms, and carelessness have brought fresh wildfires to parts of Siberia just months after deadly blazes killed more than 30 people. Sixteen districts of the Republic of Buryatia have been affected, including one military forestry, two national parks and the Baikal […]
By Seth Borenstein20 July 2015 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – Earth dialed the heat up in June, smashing warm temperature records for both the month and the first half of the year. Off-the-charts heat is “getting to be a monthly thing,” said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “This is […]
By John R. Platt9 July 2015 (Takepart.com) – California’s towering redwood trees are dying of thirst. “They require enormous amounts of water,” said Anthony Ambrose, a tree biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been studying redwoods and giant sequoias for nearly two decades. “For the big, old trees, they can use more […]
By Monica Blaylock9 July 2015 (Motherboard) – Vancouver Island is home to the wettest place in North America—and right now it’s on fire. Drought has plunged the the Port Alberni-Clayoquot Region, part of Canada’s only rainforest, into one of the worst dry seasons on record. Forest fires are spreading quickly through sun-scorched woods that, in […]
By Michael Carlowicz12 July 2015 (NASA) – For two weeks in late June and early July 2015, western Europe and the Pacific Northwest of North America endured record-setting heat and parched landscapes. Other parts of the world got a taste of the heat, too, as new temperature records were set on three continents. The map […]
By Andrew Freedman9 July 2015 (Mashable) – El Niño conditions are intensifying in the tropical Pacific Ocean, potentially leading to a record event that would help control rainfall in East Africa and possibly bring desperately needed drought relief to California, while temporarily cutting off rainfall to parts of the Indonesian rainforest. A record strong event […]
By Angela Garbes8 July 2015 (The Stranger) – Everybody in Seattle knows that summer doesn’t typically start until after the Fourth of July. It’s when, after months of rain (the infamous “Juneuary”), the clouds finally part and the temperatures rise. But not this year. Nobody knows this better than local farmers. While people have been […]
