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.
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.