Monthly Archives: December 2017

Did climate change kill the dinosaurs?

Sixty-six million years ago, the age of the dinosaurs ended abruptly, coinciding with the extinction of about 75 percent of the total number of living species.

Evidence and climate modeling indicate that global wildfires resulted from a collision with a massive asteroid that could have lofted large amounts of soot into the atmosphere. The smoke would have plunged Earth into darkness for nearly two years, which would have shut down photosynthesis, drastically cooled the planet, and contributed to the mass extinctions as evidenced in the fossil record. Continue reading

Category: Climate, Phenomena

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Can weather satellites see the fires in California?

Sensitive instruments on some weather satellites can see the fires, but only at night. They do not see individual trees burning but they detect that a region is on fire. We can see the flames during the night because it’s … Continue reading

Category: Uncategorized

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Will the roller coaster of early winter temperatures continue?

The past month was very clearly split into two nearly equal but opposite halves temperature-wise. The first 15 days of November were routinely, though not exclusively, below normal with 10 days falling into that category. In fact, the eight days … Continue reading

Category: Uncategorized

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