Ecological succession

Even as someone who writes about climate all the time, it’s still a shock to see satellite imagery of climate crises, to really get a grasp on how large human influence can be on our warming planet. Here’s how this summer of droughts, heatwaves, floods, and wildfires looked from space.First up, above: Jaw-dropping images of the Cerro Prieto reservoir in northern Mexico show how the reservoir dropped to just 0.5% of its capacity in July, compared to its much fuller state in July 2015. Mexico endured punishing drought…

Smoke from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire hovers over Las Vegas in May.Photo: Robert Browman/The Albuquerque Journal (AP)A town in New Mexico is facing a triple punch of climate impacts from wildfire, drought, and intense rainfall. The city of Las Vegas, New Mexico is set to run out of drinking water in September, thanks to pollution and debris from the largest wildfire in state history.Some residents at the fringes of Las Vegas, a city some 65 miles (105 kilometers) to the west of Santa Fe, were forced to evacuate in…

The Hog Fire burns outside of Susanville, California, in July 2020.Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP (Getty Images)The way plants sweat could be a valuable tool in helping us predict how wildfires behave. That’s the conclusion of a recent study published in Global Ecology and Biogeography from researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The temperatures of plants can tell us a lot about their health and the health of the ecosystems they live in. Under normal conditions, plants take in water through their roots and release it…