Giving Compass' Take:
- Environmental News Network reports on how wildfires and winter droughts in California are diminishing the state's snowpack.
- How can you advocate for environmental justice in California that prioritizes the marginalized groups most vulnerable to climate change and related crises?
- Learn about California droughts and rainfall.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Search our Guide to Good
Start searching for your way to change the world.
The early pandemic years overlapped with some of California’s worst wildfires on record, creating haunting, orange-tinted skies and wide swathes of burned landscape. Some of the impacts of these fires are well known, including drastic declines in air quality, and now a new study shows how these wildfires combined with midwinter drought conditions to accelerate snowmelt.
In a study published Jan. 20 in Geophysical Research Letters, a DRI-led research team examined what happens to mountain snowpacks when sunny, midwinter dry spells occur in forests impacted by severe wildfire. The researchers found a substantial increase in wildfires burning in California’s snowy landscapes throughout 2020 and 2021, when large blazes like the Dixie, Caldor, and Creek fires concentrated in snow zones. Using a 2013 midwinter dry spell as comparison, they found that similar weather in the winter of 2021-2022 led to 50% less snow cover. The compounding impacts of wildfire on snow melt include an increase in sun exposure due to loss of forest canopy, and a reduction in the snow’s ability to reflect sunlight.
Read the full article about California wildfires and droughts at Environmental News Network.