Climate Point: Some scientists are thinking about drying the sky
Blizzards and record warm conditions all in the same week, one of the biggest wildfires in the nation's recorded history and an innovative search for solutions to help reduce warming. It's been a week on the climate and environment beat.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to stories about climate, energy and the environment. I’m Dinah Voyles Pulver on Paste BN’s national climate and environment team.
Could a controversial geoengineering strategy help reduce global warming? Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asked that question in a new study that examines the potential for dehydrating the Earth’s stratosphere by removing water vapor.
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, even though other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are the most important drivers of human-caused climate change, writes Paste BN’s Doyle Rice. The concept would involve seeding small particles into the stratosphere using high-altitude planes. The study suggests this strategy could plausibly work, but several technical barriers would have to be overcome.
At least two experts told Paste BN this week that climate change may be amplifying conditions that lead to wildfires, as one of the biggest blazes in the nation's history raced across a hot, dry landscape in the Texas Panhandle. The Smokehouse Creek Fire encompassed more than a million acres by early Thursday, with little to stop it from growing larger, said Stephen Pyne, a fire historian and emeritus professor at Arizona State University.
Several other large fires are burning in the state. At one point, one of the Texas fires threatened the nation's primary nuclear waste facility.
In other wildfire news over the past week, the Oregon Senate passed a bill that would allow wildfire survivors who receive a court settlement to pay less in taxes on the award, the Statesman Journal reported. Multiple lawsuits have resulted in millions in settlements and awards to Oregon survivors over the past year.
In Southern California, a utility provider agree to pay the federal government $80 million to resolve federal litigation over a Dec. 4, 2017 wildfire that killed 2 people and destroyed 1,063 structures, the VC Star reported.
Is it spring yet?
Dozens of heat records were set this week across much of the central United States, but one of the biggest extremes was in Muskegon, Michigan.
The 30-year normal low temperature for Feb. 27 at a weather station in Muskegon is 22.8 degrees. The overnight low there on the 27th was 57 degrees. That’s 22 degrees higher than the previous record set in 1999, and more than 34 degrees higher than normal.
Graphics artist Ramon Padilla put together an illustration of the high temperature records set on Feb. 26 and newspapers across the Paste BN Network have written stories about the record-breaking temperatures and early spring.
The Indy Star also looked at the impact of climate change on heat days and some potential solutions. The Statesman Journal in Oregon looked at the "false spring" the area has experienced and the bout of cold weather that has followed it.
In Texas, the first 80-degree day was later than some previous early season records.
Preparing for the total solar eclipse
The eclipse is only about month away and Paste BN and news sites across the network are offering ideas on how to watch, where to watch and how to prepare to watch.
Read about the path of totality here and which cities are in it here and use this interactive graphic to learn where you are on the path.
Is it a mirage?
No there really is a lake in Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park. While many places are dealing with warmer than usual temperatures, Death Valley National Park is seeing the revival of a "lake" that appears from time to time when the Amargosa River floods. Kayakers are flocking to the park to paddle the massive salty puddle. This graphic illustration shows how the lake has grown this winter.
Read on for more, including why they're finding puffins in Florida and how to learn about the hummingbird migration in Ohio.
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