Climate Change, Wildfire | featured news

Climate Central points out what should already be obvious: As it’s getting hotter, we’re seeing more wildfires — and the wildfires are getting bigger. Even as the 2012 wildfire season continues — there are nearly 1 million acres actively burning right now — the site parsed the data to pick out long-term trends linking fires, size, and heat. Here are some of the key findings from its report...

If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks. Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho. These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it's far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.