Preventing Fires, Before Everything’s Aflame
Wildfires have been national news this summer. Massive, destructive burns in Colorado and New Mexico have emblazoned websites and T.V. screens across the country. But just as the monsoon rains roll into the Southwest bringing much needed moisture, the nation’s gaze over the fires will move on too. The wildfires are just the eye-catching … Read More
El Nino May Be On the Way, Altering Weather Patterns
El Niño events can also help boost global average surface temperatures. A strong El Niño event led to the record warm year of 1998, and some climate scientists, including NASA’s James Hansen, have pointed out that a new El Niño event would likely lead to another record warm year given the combination of El Niño and manmade global warming.… Read More
U.S. Has Warmest Year-to-Date As Drought Expands
The U.S. continued its hot streak through June, recording the warmest January-to-June period on record, with drought conditions spreading across the Lower 48 states to an unprecedented degree… Read More
Ongoing Heat Wave in U.S. Rivals Events of Dust Bowl Era
Tens of millions of Americans continue to sweat out one of the most intense heat waves on record since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, with heat watches and warnings in effect yet again from the Plains to the Mid-Atlantic states. As happened during the Dust Bowl, the heat is helping to dry out soils, increasing the extent and severity of drought co… Read More
Historic Heat Wave Marches On as Drought Expands
Much of the U.S. continues to be in the grip of unrelenting and dangerous heat, and the records just keep falling. During June alone, more than 3,200 daily high temperature records were set or tied, and more records have been set during the first week of July as well.… Read More
‘Heat is On’ Is Front & Center on Rachel Maddow Show
Our new report, "The Heat is On," got a great deal of attention on Wednesday, including the viewers of "The Rachel Maddow Show." Guest host Ezra Klein discussed the state-by-state temperature trends highlighted in the report. It's just the facts, the actual temperature records, as Klein notes, which is what makes the map so compelling. Some states … Read More
High Plains Farmers Depleting Groundwater, Study Says
Lead author Bridget Scanlon of the University of Texas at Austin said the rapid depletion of what is “essentially fossil groundwater, dating back as far as 13,000 years, in the southern High Plains is especially troubling, because that groundwater cannot be easily recharged.… Read More
A Tour of Drought as it Unfolds Across the U.S.
The latest drought information provides reason for concern in the West, while Texas gets more relief compared to 2011.… Read More
