Posted: March 12th, 2023

geology discussion

All reflection discussions must be 1-2 pages (approx. 500 words) and use APA citation style.

Provide citations for 2 readings (APA citation style)
Provide a summary for each reading
Discuss the major theme(s) or argument(s) of each reading
In 1-2 paragraphs, discuss your thoughts on the readings and how they connect to the week’s lesson.

12/23/2020 Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands? – Yale E360

https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands 1/6

Yale Environment 360

Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands?
Using citizen science volunteers, researchers are more accurately measuring temperature differences between
city hot spots and their cooler surroundings. With heat waves intensifying, the results are now being used to

develop a range of innovative urban planning strategies.

BY J IM MORRISON • SEPTEMBER 1 2 , 201 9

he volunteers fanned out across cities from Boston to Honolulu this summer, with

inexpensive thermal monitors resembling tiny periscopes attached to their vehicles to

collect data on street-level temperatures. Signs on their cars announcing “Science Project in

Progress” explained their plodding pace — no more than 30 miles-per-hour to capture the dramatic

temperature differences from tree-shaded parks to sun-baked parking lots to skyscraper-dominated

downtowns.

�e work of these citizen scientists is part of a new way of studying the urban heat island effect, with

volunteers mapping two dozen cities worldwide in recent years. Past studies of urban heat islands — in

which metropolitan areas experience significantly higher temperatures than their surroundings — have

relied on satellite data that measures the temperature reflected off rooftops and streets. But Vivek

Shandas, a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University in Oregon and a

researcher leading the project, says the urban heat island effect is more complicated and subtler than

satellite data indicates.

“�ere’s much more nuance within the city,” Shandas says. “What we’re finding is that there’s upwards

of 15- to 20-degree Fahrenheit differences within a city. In fact, a city could have the same temperature

reading in one area as its rural or forested counterpart.”

On-the-ground data clearly demonstrate a correlation between
lower-income neighborhoods and higher temperatures.

A Chicago resident struggles with triple-digit temperatures during a heat wave in 2012. AP PHOTO/M. SPENCER GREEN

https://e360.yale.edu/

https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-center_80/AP_120706121098_ChicagoHeat2012_web

https://e360.yale.edu/authors/jim-morrison

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/citizen-science-salon/2019/08/09/wicked-hot-boston-urban-heat-island-uhi-mapping/#.XXZOFGandAx

https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/citizen-scientists-take-to-the-streets-to-map-the-hottest-places-in-ten-u-s-cities/

12/23/2020 Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands? – Yale E360

https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands 2/6

ALSO ON YALE E360

From high above, a new way of seeing our

urban planet. Read more.

By understanding in detail where hot spots are located, cities can address extreme heat neighborhood-

by-neighborhood, choosing from a variety of strategies that include removing or whitewashing black

asphalt or roof surfaces, adding more trees for shade, requiring developers to vary the heights of new

buildings to increase airflow, and opening more public air-conditioned spaces.

Using Shandas’ research, Portland, the first city Shandas and his team surveyed, has proposed zoning

code amendments and strategies targeting urban heat, including limiting paved neighborhood

parking areas and increasing space for trees. In addition, city officials said that Shandas’ on-the-ground

data clearly demonstrated a correlation between lower-income neighborhoods and higher

temperatures. Shandas’ work also showed that the places where lower-income people often work, such

as the industrial areas along Portland’s rivers, also experience higher-than-average temperatures, the

officials said.

Other urban heat island studies have shown that the hottest places in metropolitan areas are often in

poor, minority neighborhoods with few trees, and this research can provide a framework for city

planners to address the problem.

Shandas and his teams have mapped 24 cities in

the United States and worldwide, including

Albuquerque; parts of the Vancouver

metropolitan area; Hong Kong; Doha, Qatar; and

Hermosillo, Mexico. In the past, urban heat

island studies relied on data from satellites or

stationary sensors, but Shandas’ appears to be

the first enlisting citizen scientists to collect

temperature data using mobile sensors.

Researchers have studied urban heat island

effects in every major country from Australia,

where a government study warned that heat

wave deaths would quadruple by 2050, to China,

which has more than 40 cities with populations

exceeding 2 million people. Globally, heat is the

number one weather-related killer, causing more

deaths each year than floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Extreme heat can kill directly via heat stroke

and indirectly through increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Climate models show that in some

cities the number of high-heat days could double by 2040.

�is summer’s heat wave in Europe, with temperatures soaring to a record-breaking 46 degrees Celsius

(115 degrees F) in the south of France, killed 1,500 people in France alone, the French health minister

said this week. Russian officials reported that a 2010 heat wave killed 11,000 people in Moscow. �e rise

in overall global temperature makes extreme heat events, including consecutive days of high heat,

more likely. Mitigating extreme heat, one recent study says, would save lives.

Urban heat islands have been generally understood since large cities began to emerge

in the 19th century, but research by Shandas and others reveals a complicated

patchwork of hot spots and cool spots that change during the course of a day and are

determined by urban design. Satellite data, for instance, showed midtown Manhattan

to be an afternoon hot spot. But mapping unveiled a different picture.

“When you actually go down to the ground, where people are walking and life is

happening, it turns out it’s not the same signal,” Shandas says.

“Ultimately, we’re trying to adapt the landscape to respond to
the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves,” says one

Researcher Vivek Shandas has mapped street-level temperatures in 24 cities worldwide.

COURTESY OF PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-center_80/VivekShadas_web

https://e360.yale.edu/features/from-high-above-a-new-way-of-seeing-our-urban-planet

https://e360.yale.edu/features/urban-heat-can-white-roofs-help-cool-the-worlds-warming-cities

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221067071630066X

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5923682/

https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/645259

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/5/282/htm

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/4/640/htm

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/epa_how_to_measure_a_uhi

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5751017/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212095518300555

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/heatwave-deaths-to-quadruple-government-report-finds-20130730-2qxef.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09628-w

https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/climatechange/health_impacts/cardiovascular_diseases/index.cfm

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab27cf

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/09/summer-heatwaves-in-france-killed-1500-says-health-minister

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-18/russian-heatwave-killed-11000-people/2265184

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-heat-climate-change-19641

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaau4373

12/23/2020 Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands? – Yale E360

https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands 3/6

expert.

�e long shadows of Manhattan skyscrapers, for example, can make parts of that borough cooler in

summer than some neighborhoods in Queens, which generally has low-rise buildings. On the other

hand, midtown Manhattan retains heat and starts the day much warmer because the heat that’s

absorbed by buildings, roofs, streets, and sidewalks during the day doesn’t dissipate as well at night.

“It’s the built environment that we’re really trying to understand because, ultimately, we’re trying to

adapt the landscape to respond to this increasing frequency, intensity, and duration of heat wave,”

Shandas says. “We’re trying to get more precise data. And there were so many surprises.” A large

expanse of water, for instance, or grass that is not watered, can be almost as hot as concrete, he says.

Jaime Madrigano, a researcher with the RAND Corporation who has studied urban heat, praised the

way Shandas and his colleagues were using citizen science volunteers and “getting the community

engaged in the issues around extreme heat… I think there are a lot of cities that are trying to make

these changes. �is kind of data is really important to doing that.”

Shandas grew up in Bangalore, and during visits there and to other cities in India he began thinking

about how cities have developed without regard for the increasing incidence of extreme weather

events linked to climate change, including heat waves. He began his research with a bit of engineering,

using a National Science Foundation grant to reach out to engineers who helped create the hand-made

instrumentation that transmits data. With funding from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, he first mapped Portland in 2015.

A breakfast in Portland the next year with Jeremy

Hoffman, who had just accepted a job as the

climate and earth scientist at the Science

Museum of Virginia, led to a partnership and

citizen-science projects mapping Richmond,

Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

�ose partnerships with local groups have been

invaluable, says Hoffman. “It was really useful to

have the local perspective” while creating the

mapping routes, Hoffman says. “Where is the

park that everybody goes to? Where are they

going to redevelop over the next couple of years?

�at kind of knowledge made our campaigns not

only scientifically useful, but publicly attractive.

It was the people themselves getting involved; it

wasn’t just the scientists.”

�e studies correlated data to the tenth of a

degree from sensors on vehicles that followed a

series of one-hour, zigzag routes — early morning,

mid-afternoon, and early evening — driven by

volunteers recruited by local science museums, universities, and non-profits. Fifteen teams mapped

Richmond during a summer weekend in 2017. One park along the James River measured 87 degrees F,

while a few miles away, along a four-lane roadway, it was 103 degrees.

Shandas and Hoffman say their work demonstrates that extreme heat is a social justice issue. In

Richmond’s hottest areas, they found a higher concentration of poverty and of 911 calls for heat-related

illnesses. Mapping last year in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore found a similar correlation, with

higher temperatures in lower-income neighborhoods largely barren of trees and lower temperatures in

more affluent, tree-shaded areas. Shandas and Hoffman recently completed a paper, due to be

published soon, comparing redlined neighborhoods — those once illegally designated by lenders as

A mobile sensor collects temperature data in suburban Sacramento this summer. COURTESY OF

VIVEK SHANDAS

https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-center_80/ElkGrove1_web2

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492264/

https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/5/2/41/htm

https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/where-do-we-need-shade-mapping-urban-heat-islands-richmond-virginia

12/23/2020 Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands? – Yale E360

https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands 4/6

too risky to make home loans — with extreme urban temperatures. “�e big take-home point for the

paper is that 92 percent of the cities that were redlined are now warmer than their A-rated neighbors,”

Hoffman says. “�is seems like it’s predominantly due to a lack of green and a dominance of gray.”

Shandas says the research has uncovered six things that affect urban heat. �ree are living — the

volume of the tree canopy, the height of the tree canopy, and the ground level vegetation. �ree are

human-built — the volume of buildings, the difference in building heights, and the coloring of the

buildings.

The differences in morning and afternoon temperatures in Richmond, Virginia. COURTESY OF JEREMY

HOFFMAN

Poverty levels in Richmond. Lower-income neighborhoods often experience the worst heat in the city. COURTESY OF JEREMY

HOFFMAN

https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-center_80/Urban-heat_Richmond_web

https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-center_80/poverty_Richmond_web

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/5/282/htm

12/23/2020 Can We Turn Down the Temperature on Urban Heat Islands? – Yale E360

https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands 5/6

ALSO ON YALE E360

Energy Equity: Bringing solar power to low-

income communities. Read more.

�ere were some surprises, he says. �e volume of buildings can have both a negative and positive

effect. Tall buildings that cast shade lower relative afternoon temperatures, while a large volume of

shorter buildings, like the big-box stores in suburban areas, help generate hotter afternoon

temperatures. Ground-level vegetation doesn’t necessarily reduce temperature — it’s not that much

cooler than asphalt — unless it’s watered. Shandas also has found that increasing the difference in

building heights in an area creates more air circulation, which has a cooling effect.

Creating cooler cities doesn’t necessarily mean building at lower densities. What matters, he says, is

varying building heights, the canopy cover, and street widths. “It wasn’t about no buildings and all

green,” he says. “It was about designing our spaces more thoughtfully.”

Some cities are already using the detailed research to guide decisions. In Richmond, a heat map and a

vulnerability map showing those more at risk appear in reports for housing, transportation, and the

climate action plan, and the city’s comprehensive master plan calls for reducing urban heat.

Richmond hasn’t invested in planting trees yet, he adds, but citizen-science groups like Groundwork

RVA and the museum have developed programs such as �rowing Shade in RVA, a program teaching

students about urban heat that has led to them planting peach trees at local high schools and

designing shady structures for neighborhood bus stops.

Some of the deadliest heat waves in recent decades have taken
place in northern cities, where people are not accustomed to

extreme heat.

Groundwork RVA’s parent organization, Groundwork USA, has funding to expand on this work for a

Climate Safe Neighborhoods project exploring the relationship between historical race-based housing

segregation and the impacts of climate change in Denver, Colorado; Elizabeth, New Jersey; Richmond,

California; and Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Even at higher latitudes, heat is an issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control, some of the

deadliest heat waves in recent decades have taken place in northern cities like Chicago, where people

are not accustomed to extreme heat and more residences lack air conditioning. A five-day heat wave in

Chicago in 1995 led to the deaths of 739 people.

In Portland, Shandas has created heat maps containing demographic information including age, race,

education, poverty level, and education. �e city is focusing its efforts in areas where urban heat

islands and indicators of vulnerability, including low-income levels, overlap. Shandas’ work is reflected

in Portland’s Better Housing by Design zoning update, in which the city has proposed zoning

amendments to reduce urban heat island effects, including limiting surface parking areas in

residential neighborhoods and requiring landscaped setbacks between buildings and streets to

provide more space for trees.

His next step is to expand heat island mapping to 50 cities in 2020. �e key question,

he says, is whether cities will begin making the changes necessary to decrease deaths

from extreme heat.

“�ose are very preventable deaths,” Shandas says. “We can identify those locations

and ameliorate some of the effects. It ultimately comes down to how to help these

people. We have the technology.

Jim Morrison writes about the environment, travel, the arts, and business. His stories have appeared in Smithsonian, �e New York
Times, �e Wall Street Journal, National Wildlife, Pacific Standard, �e Washington Post, and numerous other publications. He lives
in Norfolk, Virginia. MORE →

https://e360.yale.edu/features/energy-equity-bringing-solar-power-to-low-income-communities

https://www.groundworkrva.org/

Richmond teens design shade projects

Home

https://groundworkusa.org/climate-safe-neighborhoods/about/

https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/pubs/extreme-heat-guidebook

http://www.capainsights.com/social-vulnerability

https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/683878

https://e360.yale.edu/authors/jim-morrison

11/4/2020 The long distance harm done by wildfires – BBC Future

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200821-how-wildfire-pollution-may-be-harming-your-health#:~:text=But the longer-term impact,legacy carbon%2C” says Flannigan. 1/6

ENVIRONMENT

The long distance harm done by wildfires

(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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Home News Sport Reel Worklife Travel Future Culture M

By Allison Hirschlag 23rd August 2020

Smoke from burning forests and peat can linger in the
atmosphere for weeks, travelling thousands of miles and
harming the health of populations living far away.

Article continues below

rom far above, they almost look beautiful. Golden yellow tendrils etched
across the dark forest landscape below. But in daylight, at close range, the
devastation wrought by the fires in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia is
harrowing.

A wall of blistering flames engulfs the vegetation. Behind it, charred trees stand like
blackened toothpicks while columns of smoke choke the air, rising high up into the
atmosphere. Since the start of 2020, Russia has seen an estimated 19 million hectares
(73,359 square miles) consumed by wildfires, according to Greenpeace International’s
analysis of satellite images. Nasa has warned that abnormally warm temperatures in
eastern Siberia – particularly in the Sakha Republic, more than 1,250 miles (2,000km)
away from Krasnoyarsk – have led to more intense and widespread fires than normal.

The destruction this leads to is undeniable. Swathes of forest and peatland are
destroyed. Countless animals caught up in the flames and smoke perish. And when
the flames reach areas inhabited by people, they can claim many lives and homes of
those unlucky enough to be caught in their path.

In the first few months of 2020, Australia grappled with the worst wildfire season in
its history. It claimed the lives of 33 people, destroyed thousands of homes and saw
18 illi h t (69 500 il ) b d Th billi i l kill d

The health risks of wildfire smoke

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Siberia a climate hotspot: Wildfires rage covering Russian cities in smoke

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147083/another-intense-summer-of-fires-in-siberia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52410744#:~:text=Australia%20experienced%20the%20worst%20bushfire,at%20least%2033%20people%20died.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50951043

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/ten-impacts-australian-bushfires

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53549936

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11/4/2020 The long distance harm done by wildfires – BBC Future

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200821-how-wildfire-pollution-may-be-harming-your-health#:~:text=But the longer-term impact,legacy carbon%2C” says Flannigan. 2/6

18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) burned. Three billion animals were killed
or displaced. And this August, thousands of lightning strikes triggered hundreds of
fires across California, leading to a state of emergency being declared as the flames
threatened densly populated residential areas. Beset by a prolonged drought, the state
experienced its most destructive and deadliest fires in recorded history during 2017
and 2018. This year California, Washington and Oregon are fighting deadly wildfires
that have burned millions of acres of land – up to 400 hectares (1,000 acres) are
burning every 30 minutes – and destroyed thousands of homes.

You might also like:

Why the arctic is ablaze
Could this bring wildfires under control?
Five common myths about wildfires

These impacts on the ground can be hard to bear, but wildfires can have another far-
reaching effect on our lives.

Rising up to 14 miles (23km) into the air, well into the stratosphere, plumes of smoke
from large wildfires can spread all over the globe thanks to currents of air. Smoke
from this summer’s Siberian wildfires has been choking nearby cities for months now
and has spread across the Pacific Ocean to reach Alaska. The smoke has even been
reducing air quality by creating hazes in cities as far away Seattle.

Smoke from the recent fires on the west coast of the US – where blazes have already
claimed several lives in Oregon and California – has blown across the continent as far
as New York and Washington DC on the east coast.

In dry summer conditions forest fires can sweep across huge areas, but they can also smoulder
underground waiting to burst back into flame (Credit:

Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

The Arctic wildfires in Siberia this summer have set a record: for releasing more
pollution into the air in a single month than any other in 18 years of record keeping,
according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

It is in part down to what’s burning – resin-rich boreal forest, peat buried in bogs and
melting tundra permafrost all release high concentrations of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere along with methane and toxic contaminants such as mercury. But it’s
also because the fires are more widespread – a byproduct of record-breaking heat
waves that gripped the Arctic in early summer. This helped thaw parts of the tundra,
making it much more susceptible to burning.

Carried with the gases released by wildfires, however, are also tiny, lightweight
particles of soot. Such “particulate matter” (PM) is a common component in air
pollution in cities, where it can be released from vehicle exhausts and heavy industry.
But smoke from wildfires can lead to dramatic spikes in the amount of particulate
matter in the air compared with average air pollution.

Wildfire causes episodes of the worst air quality that most
people living in high income countries are ever going to
see – Sarah Henderson

For example, during wildfire season in Canada, cities in British Columbia have seen
particulate levels that are 20 times higher than would be expected on an average day.

“Wildfire causes episodes of the worst air quality that most people living in high
income countries are ever going to see,” says Sarah Henderson, senior scientist in
environmental health services at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. The
small size and large amount of particulate matter has a lot to do with this.

Wildfires tend to produce large quantities of finer particulates known as PM2.5 and
even finer nanoparticles, which are known to be particularly harmful to human
health. This is largely because the tiny particles – which are more 30 times smaller
than the width of a human hair and so too small to see – can penetrate the lung
membranes when breathed in, damaging the respiratory system and passing into the
blood stream.

Smoke from fires in Siberia has blown as far as Alaska, Canada and US cities including Seattle (Credit:
Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/ten-impacts-australian-bushfires

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53549936

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53840437

https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5511/top20_destruction

https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5512/top20_deadliest

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54095895

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54123440

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54095895

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190822-why-is-the-arctic-on-fire

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190226-how-to-bring-wildfires-back-under-control

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181113-five-myths-about-wildfires

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6453/587

https://blogs.nasa.gov/firesandsmoke/2020/07/28/siberian-smoke-2020/

Have you noticed any of that high level haze the last few days? That is smoke from wildfires in Siberia. Satellite shows it made quite the journey through Interior AK before getting here! pic.twitter.com/N9Rx2NmXFr

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) August 11, 2020

https://www.oregon.gov/odf/fire/pages/firestats.aspx

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54130785

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/western-us-smoke-from-fires-stretching-across-the-country

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/another-active-year-arctic-wildfires

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2020/nasas-aqua-satellite-shows-siberian-fires-filling-skies-with-smoke/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01773

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147083/another-intense-summer-of-fires-in-siberia#:~:text=Parrington%20noted%20that%20fires%20in,(when%20data%20collection%20began).&text=They%20also%20release%20methane%2C%20which,greenhouse%20gas%20than%20carbon%20dioxide.

http://www.bccdc.ca/resource-gallery/Documents/Guidelines%20and%20Forms/Guidelines%20and%20Manuals/Health-

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-00765-w

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4740125/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191113-the-toxic-killers-in-our-air-too-small-to-see

11/4/2020 The long distance harm done by wildfires – BBC Future

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200821-how-wildfire-pollution-may-be-harming-your-health#:~:text=But the longer-term impact,legacy carbon%2C” says Flannigan. 3/6

Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)

In the short-term, that can lead to coughing, shortness of breath and exacerbate
asthma attacks. During the bushfires at the end of 2019 in Australia, hospital
admissions due to breathing problems increased by 34% in the state of New South
Wales.

One study estimated that between 2004 and 2009, around 46 million people in the
western US were exposed to at least one wave of smoke from wildfires. On days
where smoke had caused high PM2.5 levels, there was a 7.2% increase in hospital
admissions due to respiratory illnesses. Increases in PM2.5 have also been found to
be accompanied by a spike in cases of cardiac arrest.

The potential long-term effects, however, are just as worrying.

Firefighters have been fighting to defend homes aer thousands of lightning strikes started forest fires
in California (Credit: Reuters)

Particulate matter has been linked to a range of long-term problems, including
increased inflammation, and a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.

But wildfire smoke carries an added danger compared with other particulate
pollution. It is filled with reactive chemical compounds that can be carcinogenic, and
that can also lead to premature births. These compounds can also stress the body’s
respiratory tract, leaving it more vulnerable to deadly respiratory pathogens such as
Covid-19. One study found that particulate matter from wildfire smoke was especially
harmful to a type of immune cell called macrophages in the lungs. It showed that
wildfire particulates were four times more toxic to these immune cells than
particulate matter from other air pollution. (Read more about the link between air
pollution and respiratory disease)

Henderson, who’s currently conducting two studies on the long-term health effects of
wildfire smoke, says people with pre-existing respiratory conditions are oen the
most impacted by the smoke. Her work suggests that some may never completely
recover aer experiencing just one severe wildfire season. Newborn babies, however,
may face the most life-altering impacts, because their lungs are still developing and
therefore highly vulnerable to smoke toxicity.

Wildfires in California have quickly spread to threaten homes and vehicles aer they were sparked by
lightning strikes (Credit: Reuters)

Perhaps most alarming is that the toxicity of these smoke particles also appears to
increase the further they get from the site of a fire. As they are carried in the wind, the
particles undergo chemical reactions in the air that cause them to “age” in a process
known as oxidation. This converts the particles into highly reactive compounds that
have an even greater capacity to damage cells and tissue than when they were first
produced.

A recent study conducted in Greece showed that this process can lead to the toxicity
of smoke compounds doubling in the hours aer they are first emitted from a fire
and that they have the potential to become up to four times as toxic over the
following days.

Wildfire smoke can hang in the atmosphere for days,
weeks or even months depending on how long the fires
burn

“Even if someone is far away from a fire source, they may still experience adverse
health outcomes from the inhalation of highly diluted and oxidised smoke,” says
Athanasios Nenes, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology Lausanne and the Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences in Patras,
Greece, who led the study. “We have seen that the oxidative potential of wildfire
smoke can be up to four times higher when smoke has been atmospherically
processed.”

Wildfire smoke can hang in the atmosphere for days, weeks or even months
depending on how long the fires burn. One reason it’s able to do that is because the

h t d k d h i i i t th i t i l i b t

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20200108_00.aspx

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5130603/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30262-1/fulltext

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31289812/

Siberia a climate hotspot: Wildfires rage covering Russian cities in smoke

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221783/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200427-how-air-pollution-exacerbates-covid-19

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.9b01034

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6453/587

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-animates-world-path-of-smoke-and-aerosols-from-australian-fires

11/4/2020 The long distance harm done by wildfires – BBC Future

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200821-how-wildfire-pollution-may-be-harming-your-health#:~:text=But the longer-term impact,legacy carbon%2C” says Flannigan. 4/6

superheated smoke and ash rising into the air can trigger pyrocumulonimbus events,
or fire-induced thunderstorms.

These thunderstorms form at least 10 miles (16 km) above the ground in the
stratosphere. Here they are moved by the winds and weather in the jetstream,
allowing smoke particles to “stay in the stratosphere for weeks, because it’s a very
stable layer,” says Mike Flannigan, director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland
Fire Science at the University of Alberta.

This also allows wildfire smoke to travel huge distances. Large wildfires can send
smoke billowing across whole continents and even oceans. In 2019, smoke from
forest fires in Alberta, Canada, was tracked spreading across the Atlantic and into
Europe. Smoke from the recent Australian fires was carried by pyrocumulonimbus
events over New Zealand, where it impacted air quality and visibly darkened snow
on mountains. The smoke even made it to South America.

Experts like Henderson and Nenes fear this spread of wildfire smoke may be
exacerbating the harmful health effects of existing air pollution in busy,
overpopulated cities. Globally wildfire smoke has been estimated to cause over
339,000 premature deaths a year – far more than those who lose their lives directly in
these blazes. It could also be shortening life expectancies for populations that
experience fire seasons regularly, Henderson warns.

The smoke from fires in Australia in 2019 and early 2020 led to a spike in hospitalisations in New South
Wales (Credit: NASA/Maxar Technologies)

“It really has an impact if you live under poor air quality conditions,” says Henderson.
“If that translates to these populations that are living for four months at a time in
these really smoky conditions, you know that’s going to have an impact on their life
expectancy.”

Wearing masks such as the N95 respirator can help people to protect themselves
when they venture outside during wildfire smoke events. Investing in air purifiers
with HEPA filters can also help reduce fine particles indoors too, says Henderson.

“If we can keep the indoor air as smoke-free as possible, it will go a long way to
protecting people from these exposures,” she says.

But the longer-term impact of wildfires is not just on human health, but the health of
the planet as a whole. Burning forests and peat release huge amounts of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Peat fires are important because it’s legacy carbon,” says Flannigan. “It’s been built
up over thousands of years. And it can be emitted to the atmosphere in a matter of
hours or days.” One study estimated that during the 2015 fire season in Indonesia,
biomass fires that included a significant amount of peat released the equivalent of 1.5
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while fires in 1997 released so
much carbon it was equivalent to 13-40% of all emissions from fossil fuels that year.

As climate change causes these Arctic territories to warm,
the risk of more carbon-spewing peat fires will only
increase

According to Flannigan, the soil in Russia, Alaska and Canada contains 30 times the
amount of peat found in Indonesia’s soil. As climate change causes these Arctic
territories to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet, the risk of more carbon-
spewing peat fires will only increase.

If that wasn’t enough, these areas are regularly experiencing so-called Zombie fires,
which are slow-burn peat fires that can smoulder just under the ground for months
and even years, only to roar back to life when temperatures climb, as happened in
Siberia this year.

With climate change bringing warmer, dryer summer conditions, it could lead to a
vicious cycle of fire.

“The warmer we get, the more fire we get,” says Flannigan. “The more fire we get, the
more greenhouse gas emissions we get, which feeds the warming and this keeps on
going until something changes.”

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-animates-world-path-of-smoke-and-aerosols-from-australian-fires

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346787/#:~:text=Objective%3A%20We%20estimated%20the%20annual,landscape%20fire%20smoke%20(LFS).&text=Results%3A%20Our%20principal%20estimate%20for,tested%20estimates%20was%20260%2C000%E2%80%93600%2C000.

https://www.pnas.org/content/113/33/9204

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01131

https://theconversation.com/siberia-heatwave-why-the-arctic-is-warming-so-much-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-world-141455

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/28/zombie-fires-burning-arctic-siberia/

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2020/nasas-aqua-satellite-shows-siberian-fires-filling-skies-with-smoke/

11/4/2020 The long distance harm done by wildfires – BBC Future

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200821-how-wildfire-pollution-may-be-harming-your-health#:~:text=But the longer-term impact,legacy carbon%2C” says Flannigan. 5/6

MINING

Why it’s getting harder to mine gold

(Image credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

   

The haze generated by forest fire smoke can impact the air quality in cities nearby and also thousands
of miles away (Credit: EPA)

Nasa researchers discovered another effect wildfire smoke may be having on the
climate. They found the Earth is surrounded by a haze of old smoke hanging in the
troposphere over places like Antarctica. It accounts for roughly one-fih of the
aerosols from global fires.

“On a global scale, these smoke particles cool the Earth, but only slightly,” says
Gregory Schill, a research associate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory where the study was conducted. “On
a regional scale, however, and in climate-sensitive places like the Arctic, these
particles can cause a regional warming effect.”

One reason for this is that black and brown carbon in smoke absorbs heat, causing the
air temperature to rise and warm the area below. In areas like the Arctic, this could
only exacerbate the problem, creating the conditions that would make wildfires even
more likely.

In a world already struggling against wildfires, it is a worrying prediction.

—

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     S H A R E

By Chris Baraniuk 27th October 2020

Thepriceofgoldhasrocketedduringthepandemic,butmining

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The price of gold has rocketed during the pandemic, but mining
it is getting more difficult. Chris Baraniuk reports on challenges
and controversy at one of the UK’s biggest planned mines.

Article continues below

or 1,000 days, the caravan stood with banners and placards pinned to its
side: “We are not afraid. This is our land. This is our home. We will die for
it.” Irish flags flutter in the wind. This is the anti-gold mine protest site
set up by a group of locals in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

With 460 million-year-old veins of gold strewn hither and thither in the rock deep
underfoot, the prospect of a mine in Curraghinalt, in a remote corner of the Sperrin
mountains, has been talked about for decades – but it has never yet materialised. A
recent application by a mining company to extract the seams of precious metal, has
brought the prospect closer still. If successful, the firm says it could bring new jobs
and money to the area. But many here want to keep things the way they are.

“I devote all my time to this campaign, I just feel it’s our future,” says Fidelma O’Kane,
a retired social worker and lecturer who is concerned about the potential
environmental impacts of the mine.

“My main worry is that the water will be poisoned, the air will be poisoned, the land
will be contaminated – and ultimately people’s health will suffer,” she adds,
explaining that she would never accept a mine, of any kind, in this area.

The company hoping to extract precious metals here, Dalradian Gold, says that it has
put in place a swathe of environmental safeguards, and promises several economic
benefits for locals. Still, the online planning proposal for the mine has attracted tens
of thousands of comments, mostly negative, and a public inquiry will now take place

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