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As Arizona fire rages, scientists warn of more unpredictable blazes
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on July 3rd, 2013
LA Times: Early morning is a frenetic time at a wildfire command post. Biologists, meteorologists, foresters and firefighters hustle into tents and grab laptops to review overnight reports, prepping for the day's assault. Fire behavior analysts run computer models that spit out information crucial to putting out the blaze: how many acres a fire will probably burn, in which direction and with what intensity.
In recent years, the models have been rendered practically obsolete, unable to project how erratic...
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U.S. to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtle habitat
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on May 3rd, 2013
LA Times: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has two months to identify suitable in-water nesting and migratory habitat for endangered loggerhead sea turtles, according to a legal settlement filed this week.
The agreement -- between the wildlife service and the groups Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Oceana -- gives the government until July 1 to propose feeding, breeding and migratory habitat in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans....
Texas wildfires: Is drought the new climate?
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on September 8th, 2011
LA Times: The litany of misery playing out in Texas is tough to watch but less difficult to predict.
Well before the contagion of wildfires was sparked this week, the state had been experiencing a weather catastrophe. Texas has seen its driest consecutive months since record-keeping began in 1895. Parts of the state have had no measurable rain in nearly a year. The drought, warn officials from the National Weather Service, may continue into next year.
A brutal heat wave has tormented residents, with...
Texas drought: Texas farmers struggle to survive brutal drought
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on May 22nd, 2011
LA Times: The wind in West Texas is famously powerful and incessant. But this year, more big blows than anyone can remember have roared through, stripping away precious topsoil and carrying off another season of hope for farmers and ranchers. Everywhere, it seems, the land is on the move: sand building up in corners of the just-swept front porch and coating clean laundry on the line, dust up your nose and in crevices of farm machinery. Drive along unpaved county roads and the farmers' plight becomes clear:...