Experts see new normal as a hotter, drier U.S. West faces more huge fires – ‘The fire season has lengthened substantially, by two months, over the last 30 years’

By FELICITY BARRINGER and KENNETH CHANG, with additional reporting by Fernanda Santos and John Dougherty from Prescott, Arizona, and Jonathan Weisman from Washington1 July 2013 (The New York Times) – One of the deadliest wildfires in a generation vastly expanded Monday to cover more than 8,000 acres, sweeping up sharp slopes through dry scrub and […]

Alaska continues to fry, as wildfires flare up

By Jason Samenow19 June 2013 (Washington Post) – After Monday’s record-breaking temperatures, it remains unseasonably warm in Alaska. And the heat may stick around – at least in the northern part of the state. Writes the NWS office serving Fairbanks: …REGARDLESS OF WHICH MODEL IS FOLLOWED…ALL OF THEM SPELL EXTREME HEAT FOR NORTHERN ALASKA ALL […]

19 firefighters killed in Arizona blaze – ‘Our entire crew was lost’

‘ By Holly Yan1 July 2013 (CNN) – They were part of an elite squad who confronted wildfires up close, setting up barriers to stop their destructive spread. But the inferno blazing across central Arizona proved too much. The 19 firefighters were killed Sunday while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire, northwest of Phoenix. It was […]

Western United States swelters amid deadly heat – 72 percent of West now in drought

By Tim Gaynor, with additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami, Brad Poole in Tucson, Timothy Pratt in Las Vegas, and Marty Graham in San Diego; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Stacey Joyce30 June 2013 PHOENIX (Reuters) – A dangerous, record-breaking heat wave in the western United States contributed to the death of a Nevada […]

Humans play role in Australia’s ‘angry’ hot summer – ‘Due to greenhouse gas emissions, these types of extreme summers will become even more frequent and more severe in the future’

27 June 2013 (University of Melbourne) – Human influences through global warming are likely to have played a role in Australia’s recent “angry” hot summer, the hottest in Australia’s observational record, new research has found. The research led by the University of Melbourne, has shown that global warming increased the chances of Australians experiencing record […]

Transcript of President Obama’s climate change speech – ‘I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing’

By Tom Randall 25 June 2013 (Bloomberg) – Transcript of President Barack Obama’s speech at Georgetown University announcing his new climate-change policy: On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit. So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders — the first humans to orbit the moon — described […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Black Forest fire burn scar, 21 June 2013

By Adam Voiland21 June 2013 (NASA) – The first 911 call for the Black Forest fire came in on 11 June 2013. Nine days later, firefighters had fully contained the blaze, but not before it had devastated Black Forest, a wooded suburb of Colorado Springs, Colorado. In all, the fire charred more than 14,000 acres […]

Arctic heat wave hits central Siberia, pushing temperatures to 90 degrees F (32C) and sparking tundra fires

[Desdemona wonders if the summer sun in Seattle will again be dimmed by smoke from Siberia megafires, as in 2012.] By Robert Scribbler21 June 2013 Today, a heatwave circling the Arctic set its sights on central Siberia. Temperatures soared into the upper 80s to near 90 degrees over a vast region of Siberian tundra, setting […]

Video: Fighting for water in New Mexico

[As always, apologies for the ad. – Des] In Magdalena, N.M., the town’s well has run dry. Now they’re rationing water bottles, and using porta-potties while trying to conserve as much as possible. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports. Fighting for water in New Mexico Technorati Tags: North America,drought,crop failure,agriculture,global warming,climate change,freshwater depletion

Why NASA’s latest photo of Alaska is freaking people out

By JAKE ELLISON21 June 2013 (Seattle PI) – At first glance, it’s just a great photo of nearly the entire state of Alaska on an exceptionally clear day. What could be the problem? Well, turns out that photo shows an anomaly that some are fretting signifies yet another big shift in global climate – a […]

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