Climate Point: Summer gets off to early start with heat waves, storms
The longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere rolled by this week, marking the summer solstice and heralding the official beginning of summer with storms and heat waves aplenty.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environment news across the country. I'm Dinah Voyles Pulver, one of the national reporters covering these topics for Paste BN.
The real peak for hot summer temperatures tends to lag about a month behind the solstice, explains this Paste BN graphic. But the heat waves have already started with warnings in Texas and Florida over the past week. And a line of tropical waves are already rolling across the tropical Atlantic, looking much more like late summer than June.
Summer also often means trouble at the beach, with dead fish and rotting seaweed, and these issues may grow even worse in a warming world.
Wildfires bring smoke, raise water concerns
In Ventura County, California, a citizen’s grand jury panel investigated policies at local water providers and said agencies need to do more to prevent water shortages during wildfires.
“An adequate supply of water is essential," but backup power to keep equipment running is not always available, their report stated. Only one of the agencies had written procedures for responding when the National Weather Service issues watches and warnings for critical fire weather.
Two graphics helped explain how to keep the wildfire smoke that plagued much of the country last week out of your home and how climate change could fuel more California wildfires.
Federal land management scrutinized
A coalition of local and national environmental groups are suing the U.S. Forest Service over its authorization of two mining exploration projects in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tucson alleges the agency violated the National Environmental Protection Act by approving exploratory drilling for minerals without considering the cumulative effects of the area’s mining activity on water in the Sonoita Creek drainage or on endangered species including the Mexican spotted owl.
Wind energy moves forward, concerns remain
Along the coast of New York, New Jersey and New England, news is happening on several fronts related to the development of wind energy in the region.
Vineyard Wind has begun laying foundations for wind turbines off Martha’s Vineyard, while in New Jersey, groups are suing to try to stop the offshore wind industry from developing in the region. Also, the federal Government Accountability Office agreed to look into the impacts of offshore wind off New Jersey after months of controversy.
In other news:
If you love wildlife and you’ve ever seen Jack Hanna on television or in person, you may want to read this touching story about the zookeeper’s life with Alzheimer’s disease.
And in a commentary on the state of affairs among journalists and meteorologists covering how climate change is helping fuel warming temperatures and more extreme weather events, a meteorologist in Des Moines, Iowa cited harassing emails and threats from viewers as one of the reasons he’s leaving his television station. The meteorologist, Chris Gloninger, said he will be focusing full time on climate change.
Other stories this week looked at sharks, an app that lets you identify birds by the sounds they make and a push to save a rare Florida orchid.
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