Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S. — much longer than scientists estimated. A new study led by CIRES researchers, published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment,analyzed water quality in more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S., and is the…
View of CCAC construction site in Vastria forest, Lesbos, Greece , 21 January 2025. Marion Bouchetel/Thomson Reuters Foundation. What’s the context? An EU-funded centre for migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos has angered locals, who fear wildfires in a protected area. LONDON/MADRID – The pristine pine forest of Vastria on the Greek island of…
Research led by climate scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) reveals that millions of today’s young people will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical storms under current climate policies. If global temperatures rise by 3.5°C by 2100, 92% of children born in 2020 will experience…
Scientists say human-caused climate change led to 15,000 additional deaths from wildfire air pollution in the continental United States during the 15-year period ending in 2020. About 35% of the additional deaths attributed to climate change occurred in 2020, the year of the historic Labor Day fires in the Pacific Northwest as well as major…
Fire regime is predicted to change, particularly in Mediterranean climate regions, towards more severe and frequent fire events. From a predictive perspective, trait-based ecology offers a comprehensive framework to characterize vegetation responses to fire. Since fires induce erosion and decrease soil nutrients, species’ functional traits and their distribution at community level should reflect these changes….
In the charred landscapes left behind by the Los Angeles wildfires, a persistent sign of life has transfixed locals: trees. On lots where houses have been reduced to piles of rubble and cars to mangled metal husks, trees rise. These surviving oaks, pines and orange trees are often the only remaining landmarks in a neighborhood,…