Key Facts Of The Day 09/14

Hurricanes

• On Monday, heavy rainfall overwhelmed storm drains and caused mudslides in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
  • The mudflows and flash flooding occurred in parts of the San Bernardino Mountains, where there are burn scars from the 2020 wildfires.
  • On Tuesday, east of Los Angeles, crews searched street by street for people who might be trapped by mudflows that washed rocks, trees, and other debris with tremendous force into Forest Falls, Oak Glen, and Yucaipa.
  • A video captured San Bernardino police rescuing a family from a raging flash flood.
  • Homes and other buildings were damaged, including a commercial building buried so high its roof collapsed.
  • Heavy rain also impacted California State University San Bernardino, which had to cancel in-person classes as the campus and its sister campus in Palm Desert sustained flood damage.
• A new report by Climate Central found that almost 650,000 individual and privately owned parcels of land across 4.4 million acres could be at least partially underwater by 2050.
  • Researchers also predicted that property with a value of $108 billion is at risk of being lost by rising seas by 2100.
  • Florida, Louisiana, and Texas are home to the properties at the greatest risk of falling partially under rising waters.
    • Over 140,000 individual parcels may be underwater by 2050 in Florida, while over 100,000 could be swallowed up in Louisiana, and over 60,000 in Texas. 
  • North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey are expected to lose over 40,000 parcels of property.

Wildfires

• As of Wednesday, there are currently 91 large active wildfires that have burned 854,587 across CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY. As of Wednesday, 50,691 wildfires have burned 6,717,555 acres across the country.
• In California, 10 fires have burned 152,361 acres as of Wednesday.
  • The Fairview Fire has burned 28,307 acres and is 65% contained as of Wednesday.
  • The Mosquito Fire has burned 50,330 acres and is 25% contained as of Wednesday.
• In Nevada, 1 fire has burned 702 acres as of Wednesday.
• In Oregon, 9 fires have burned 310,327 acres as of Wednesday.
  • The Cedar Creek Fire has burned 92,548 acres and is 0% contained as of Wednesday.

Extreme Heat

• A new report by the U.N. found that the world is “heading in the wrong direction” when it comes to climate change.
  • U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters. They are the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction.”
  • The report also found that weather-related disasters have increased fivefold over the last 50 years and are killing 115 people per day on average.
  • Greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise to record highs, and fossil fuel emission rates are now above pre-pandemic levels.
  • There is a 48% chance that, during at least one year in the next 5, the annual mean temperature will temporarily be 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than the 1850-1900 average.
  • As global warming increases, “tipping points” in the climate system cannot be ruled out as global warming increases.
• California becomes the first U.S. state to begin ranking extreme heat wave events.
  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law a heat wave ranking system bill to prepare the state for dangerous extreme heat events.
• Due to the drought in Colorado, corn condition was most recently rated 10% very poor, 19% poor, 40% fair, 28% good, and 3% excellent.
• Northeast drought endangers Massachusetts’ cranberry harvest.
  • Without cranberries, Massachusetts misses out on an industry that contributes approximately 7,000 jobs to its economy and more than $1 billion in annual economic activity to the region.
  • Peter Hanlon – a 68-year-old farmer who has been growing cranberries in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for decades – sold his farm because profit margins are incredibly tight, and increasingly erratic weather patterns in recent years have made cranberries more difficult to grow.

New Reports and Data

• A September 2022 report found that the world is “heading in the wrong direction” when it comes to climate change.
• A September 2022 study found, for the first time, microplastics in water trapped in plant leaf axils.
• A September 2022 study found that forests’ carbon uptake will be compromised by climate change.