Wildfires in the American West have become increasingly frequent and intense since the 1980s, and the average wildfire season today is 78 days longer than it was thirty years ago. … Read more
drought
Drought, Fires Threaten Southwest’s Fish and Wildlife
Why are rescue missions being staged for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow? Sizzling, record-breaking temperatures and some of the lowest snowpack levels on record in the Southern Rockies have … Read more
Restoring Paradise After Hurricane Irma
Florida has always been in the path of storms – it juts right out into Hurricane Alley – but as people have built along the coast, drained wetlands, and contributed … Read more
California Drought Spurs Dangerous Attack on Endangered Species Act
Right now, all anyone can talk about in California is the drought. Our snowpack is at 12 percent of normal levels, our reservoirs resemble drained bathtubs, and our rivers are … Read more
UPDATED:Flood of `Biblical Proportions’ Leaves Behind Devastation, Pollution
There’s the devastation that we know has been unleashed by Colorado’s rains of “of biblical proportions”—eight people presumed dead; about 1,500 homes destroyed and more than 17,000 damaged; and numerous roads … Read more
The Wests’ New Norm: A Nearly Neverending Wildfire Season
This Rocky Mountain summer is shaping up to be a lot like last summer — hot, dry, fiery. And it’s not even officially summer yet. A wildfire driven by drought, wind … Read more
What’s Not Making the News
As a boy living in Pittsburgh, I watched KDKA, one of the world’s first commercial television stations, and WQED, the nation’s first community-sponsored public television station, on my family’s Crosley … Read more
Drought and the Climate Change Freeloaders
By now our news media has probably made you aware of the historic drought that is gripping the country. Almost 80 percent of the nation’s agricultural land is experiencing drought … Read more
Finding Hope in a Texas Wind Farm
Many days it’s rather depressing to be a climate scientist. It can be hard to keep a positive outlook when we seem to be on a trajectory toward more and … Read more
