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The video is captivating: Three whitish-gray geysers gush eastward from the mountains of New Mexico, while a brown layer pours down from the north like a wave on a beach.
What it represents is far more destructive.
Captured in time-lapse by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, the image shows two devastating events taking place in the western United States. The first is a wildfire outbreak in northern New Mexico. started last month and intensified in the last two weeks, fueled by extreme drought and strong winds. The second is a dust storm caused by strong winds in Colorado.
Both are examples of types of natural disasters that are becoming more severe and frequent as a result of climate change.
Seven big fires were burning in New Mexico on Tuesday, According to NASA Earth Observatory. Satellite imagery shows four of them. To the west is the Cerro Pelado fire, which covers about 27,000 acres near Los Alamos National Laboratory. The northernmost is the Cooks Peak fire, which covers about 59,000 acres near Taos. Just south of that are the fires of Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak, which combined into a massive 160,000-acre fire around April 22.
The total land lit in satellite imagery is approximately 380 square miles, an area larger than Indianapolis. Especially the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire forced thousands of people to evacuate their homesIncluding Las Vegas, NM, with a population of 13,000, about an hour east of Santa Fe.
Wildfires are a natural part of Western ecosystems, but human activities have made them much worse. Drought is an important contributor. last two decades It was the driest of the 12th century in the southwestern United States, largely due to climate changeand no symptoms these conditions will improve any time soon.
The other big factor is the wind, which is currently fueling all the fires in northern New Mexico. In fact, Hermits Peak Fire started out as a predicted burn – that is, a fire. deliberately putUnder controlled conditions, to clear dry vegetation and reduce the risk of larger, uncontrolled fires – but fierce, unpredictable winds threw it out of control.
High winds were also responsible for the second phenomenon seen in the image released by NOAA: the dust storm in Colorado.
“Visibility drops to almost zero and winds are blowing 50-60 mph through this blowing dust,” said the National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colo. He said on Twitter on FridayWarning of extremely dangerous situations for drivers.
Satellite images underscore how widespread the effects of such disasters can be. While the “stretch” conditions during a dust storm were relatively local, winds carried the dust particles hundreds of kilometers across southeast Colorado, western Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles.
Fine particulate matter reduces air quality and poses health hazards, especially for people with underlying lung or heart diseases. This applies to dust as well as smoke, soot and other byproducts of forest fires.
forest fires last summer led to air quality warnings almost all over the country and turned the sun red As far east as New York City. and researchers found in january Dangerous smog and ozone levels were rising in most of the western United States.
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