By Daniel Arkin17 June 2013 (NBC News) – Southern California fire officials warned Monday that the state should take caution during a brutal fire season that projections suggest could be the worst to hit the region in a century. “We’re going to have a very volatile fire season,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby […]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, 19 June 2013 (Associated Press) – As the West battles one catastrophic wildfire after another, the federal government is spending less and less on its main program for preventing blazes in the first place. A combination of government austerity and the ballooning cost of battling the ruinous fires has taken a bite […]
By Oliver Milman 16 June 2013 (The Guardian) – Floods, bushfires, and this year’s scorching summer heatwave have raised awareness of the dangers of climate change, but an “infantile” debate over the validity of the science has cost Australia precious time, according to a key Climate Commission expert. The commission, an independent body that advises […]
By Jenny Deam13 June 2013 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Los Angeles Times) – The Black Forest wildfire, still raging out of control, became deadly with the grim discovery Thursday of two people killed while apparently trying to flee their home. El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said the victims were found about 2 p.m. in their […]
By Matt Siegel24 May 2013 (National Geographic News) – In early 2012 once-in-a-century floods submerged swaths of Great Britain and Ireland, causing some $1.52 billion in damages. Then in June record-high temperatures in Russia sparked wildfires that consumed 74 million acres of pristine Siberian taiga. Months after that, Hurricane Sandy pummeled seven countries, killing hundreds […]
By Bobby Magill 23 May 2013 (The Coloradoan) – Nolan Doesken used to have a hard time talking about climate change. The topic has become so politically combustible that some scientists and researchers find it difficult to speak of or write about. But, after the High Park Fire swept the foothills in 2012, Doesken decided […]
By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent12 May 2013 (BBC News) – More than half of common plant species and a third of animals could see a serious decline in their habitat range because of climate change. New research suggests that biodiversity around the globe will be significantly impacted if temperatures rise more than 2C. But the […]
By Dr. Jeff Masters 3 May 2013 (wunderground.com) – A highly unusual jet stream pattern is bringing a bizarre combination of heavy May snows, flooding, extreme fire danger, and well below average severe thunderstorm activity to the U.S. A strong “blocking” high pressure system has set up over Greenland, blocking the normal west-to-east progression of […]
By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News4 May 2013 (NBC News) – Record-setting temperatures, erratic winds and a parched landscape spell a dangerous fire season for California, experts said on Friday as firefighters fought to control several large blazes of a kind that usually would not raise thick plumes of smoke over the horizon until […]
24 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Rainforests that have been affected by even low-intensity fires are far more vulnerable to invasion by grasses, finds a new study published in special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The findings are significant because they suggest that burned forests may be more susceptible to […]