Student Opinion: California Fires Rage: A Grim Reminder of Climate Change

By Jacob Vito It appears that 2020 is a year of records and none of them good. The Atlantic coast has received a record number of hurricanes, leading the National Hurricane Center to run out of names in their seasonal pool; COVID-19 has become one of the most impactful viral outbreaks in history and now California has seen a string of the largest wildfires measured in the state.

Two massive fires, the Blue Ridge fire and Silverado Fire, have spread across 4.1 million acres of land and forced the evacuations of over 70,000 people, according to a CNN report . At this point in time, estimates leave the fires less than 30 percent contained. Scientists and environmentalists alike lay much of the blame for these recent fires at the feet of climate change.

A study from NASA found a 5 °F increase in average summer temperatures across the state over the last 130 years, a worrying trend that seems to only be worsening. Such temperature increases have noticeably decreased the amount of water in the biomes across places like California, a National Geographic analysis shows. This extreme dryness only leads to more susceptible conditions for a fire –– only […]

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