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☆ How Canada’s Record Wildfires Got So Bad, So Fast
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Nadja Popovich | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

How Canada’s Record Wildfires Got So Bad, So FastWildfires in Canada have burned a staggering 25 million acres so far this year, an area roughly the size of Kentucky. With more than a month of peak fire season left to go, 2023 has already eclipsed Canada’s previous annual record from 1989, when over 18 million acres were scorched. Hot, dry conditions have fueled widespread wildfires, mostly in Canada’s boreal forests, since the spring, with some of the largest blazes burning in Northwest Canada and Quebec. A heat wave baked British Columbia and Alberta in mid-May, exacerbating several early wildfires. More than 100 times over the past three months, Canadian wildfires have grown sufficiently large and powerful to produce their own weather, kicking up giant thunderclouds known as pyrocumulonibus, and injecting smoke high into the atmosphere.

Persons: ”, Jennifer Kamau, Kamau, “, González, Mike Flannigan, Yan Boulanger, Flanningan Organizations: Canadian Interagency Forest Fire, Madison Dong, Thompson Rivers University, Laurentian Forestry Centre, Times Locations: Canada, Kentucky, Northwest Canada, Quebec, North America, International, United States, Madison, Columbia, Alberta, Northern Canada, Thompson, Kamloops , British Columbia, California

☆ How Can We Measure Droughts and Deluges? Weigh the Planet.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Mira Rojanasakul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

Scientists have long cautioned that warming temperatures would lead to wetter and drier global extremes — increasingly severe rainfall, more intense droughts. km3/month Global intensity of wet and dry extremes 30,000 20,000 Wet extremes 10,000 -10,000 Dry extremes -20,000 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 km3/month 30,000 Global intensity of wet and dry extremes 20,000 Wet extremes 10,000 -10,000 Dry extremes -20,000 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 km3/month Global intensity of wet and dry extremes 30,000 20,000 Wet extremes 10,000 -10,000 Dry extremes -20,000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 km3/ month Global intensity of wet and dry extremes 30,000 20,000 Wet extremes 10,000 -10,000 Dry extremes -20,000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 km3/ month Global intensity of wet and dry extremes 30,000 20,000 Wet extremes 10,000 -10,000 Dry extremes -20,000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 Source: Rodell and Li, Nature Water (2023), based on analysis of NASA Grace and Grace-FO data. Europe July 2018–April 2021 Drought across Europe returned with the La Niña that lasted through 2022. Central Africa 2. Central Africa 2.

☆ Biden Administration Decision to Delay Shootdown of Chinese Balloon Questioned
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Alex Leary | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration came under scrutiny Sunday over its handling of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, with Republican lawmakers asking why the craft was allowed to enter and then traverse the U.S. for days before being shot down. The U.S. military first detected the balloon north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska on Jan. 28 and watched as it then entered northwest Canada and moved over Idaho and Montana and to the southeast before an Air Force jet fighter shot it down off the South Carolina coast on Saturday.

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