Wildfire

Global distribution of WUIs. a–c, Geographic distribution of global WUI areas (a) and zoomed-in subsets of intermix WUI and interface WUI areas (b) and global urban areas (c) overlaid on high-resolution satellite imagery across different continents in 2020. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01291-0 Wildfires present complex socio-economic and ecological challenges, as they devastate vegetation,…

Xcel Energy said it believes its own facilities have been involved in starting massive wildfires still raging in Texas. Xcel Energy said it believes its own facilities have been involved in starting massive wildfires still raging in Texas. FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE NEWS Read original article here Denial of responsibility! Techno Blender is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials…

Conspiracy theorists spent Thursday trying to claim President Joe Biden had accidentally “admitted” that directed-energy weapons were being used to start devastating wildfires like the one in Texas this week that’s become the largest in state history. But you won’t be surprised to learn that the video clip these folks are using takes Biden’s words out of context.“Because a lot... if you fly over these areas that are burned to the ground, you’ll see in the midst of 20 homes that are just totally destroyed one home is…

A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million US to climate scientist Michael Mann, who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester.Mann, a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania, rose to fame for a graph first published in 1998 in the journal Nature that was dubbed the "hockey stick" for its dramatic illustration of a warming planet.The work brought Mann wide exposure but also many skeptics, including the two writers…

CLIMATEWIRE | A small engineering team at a cavernous lab in South Carolina spends its days setting buildings, fences and bushes on fire — and studying what happens next.The research is for the U.S. insurance industry, which has suffered historic losses over the last decade in blazes that have leveled entire communities.The industry in response has tapped the scientists to investigate how wildfires spread through urban areas, a field of study that has taken on greater importance as climate change fuels bigger and more…

Five years and 2,500 miles apart, fires devastated thriving communities — and major U.S. utility companies stood at the center of the infernos.It's a story increasingly familiar in the energy industry: Some utility companies don't properly assess the risks wildfires pose to their operations. A failure to mitigate these risks can have disastrous consequences for both fire victims and utility investors.Through interviews with experts and a review of public records, CNBC found evidence of safety shortcomings in the utility…

A multi-institutional team of researchers characterized how solar radiation from the sun interacts with individual tar balls dispersed over a mountainous region in northern Italy. Credit: Environmental Science & Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c03498 Days after a wildfire, a type of smoke can linger in the atmosphere that contains tiny, brown, light-absorbing particles known as tar balls. These particles are…

When vineyards are exposed to wildfire smoke, the grapes may absorb compounds which end up detracting from the flavor of the wine. A new spray-on grape coating could help, however, keeping wines from being described as possessing "a hint of burning forest."The nontoxic, edible solution was developed by scientists at Oregon State University, who were prompted to do so after the 2020 Pacific Northwest wildfires caused many vineyard owners in the region to discard their crops.Among other things, the liquid contains cellulose…

A California startup using artificial intelligence (AI) and satellites to spot fire and weather risks on power lines, AiDash, reported on Tuesday it had raised $50 million in new funding, reflecting Silicon Valley efforts to create products that help energy companies adapt to climate change.Power utilities are under pressure to cut risks of forest fires and storm-based outages after massive fires have been sparked by power lines and weather events brought down lines. At the same time, loads on the grid are likely to rise…

Canada's forestry sector is responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than show up in official tallies, potentially leading to policies that aren't in line with the country's climate goals, a new study suggests.The peer-reviewed study, published in the academic journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, found that annual greenhouse gas emissions attributable to forestry between 2005 and 2021 were, on average, nearly 91 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — which would put the sector on par with…