This week in climate photos
This is me trying to decide what to focus on in today’s newsletter:
Instead of choosing, I decided we should briefly review all of the major climate-related events affecting Americans just this week, because they show how high the stakes are.
Wildfire smoke hits the Midwest and Northeast
As CBS News reported, “Canadian officials openly blame human-caused climate change for the shifting warmth, snowpack and drought patterns that underpin its shifting wildfire seasons.”
Heat waves scorch Florida, the mid-Atlantic, and the West
Climate change made this week’s scorching temperatures in some regions five times more likely, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit research group.
Another deluge in Texas
Texas Hill Country is flooding again, a little more than a year after floodwaters killed at least 139 people in the region.
“This is likely a weather event compounded by a moisture-laden atmosphere and warm Gulf that is consistent with climate change,” meteorologist Marshall Shepherd wrote of this year’s floods. “What concerns me more is that because of physics and responses to warming climate, the atmosphere is quite ‘juiced’ going forward.”
What to do:
– Sara Peach, Editor-in-Chief
Good news! You can help scientists study walruses
Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media reports:
People across the world are signing up to be online walrus detectives.
They’re scanning hundreds of thousands of satellite images of the Arctic to find and count the blubbery, tusked animals.
Rod Downie is with the nonprofit WWF, which partnered with the British Antarctic Survey to launch the Walrus from Space project.
He says walruses are under threat as human activity in the Arctic increases and climate warming melts the sea ice they use for breeding and resting.
“Despite being such big, powerful animals, they’re really increasingly vulnerable to climate change as the sea ice is literally melting out from beneath them,” Downie said.
To study how warming will affect walruses and take action to protect them, scientists need to know how many walruses there are now and where they live.
But the Arctic is vast and remote, and the animals get spooked when people are nearby. So instead of counting them in person, the team asks volunteers to identify them from satellite images.
Downie hopes that this project can help people learn more about the Arctic and feel like they’re making a difference.
“Having something really practical to do that will contribute towards the science and ultimately contribute towards the conservation of an iconic Arctic species is just a great opportunity,” he said.
Learn more and sign up for the Walrus from Space project.
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Your moment of hope
🎙️Reflective paint can keep your home cooler
It reflects the sun’s rays and emits absorbed heat, keeping the building cooler inside.
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Your cartoon of the week
Tom Toro is the author of the cartoon collection “And to Think We Started as a Book Club…” and the creator of the comic Substack “Undiscovered Masterpieces.”