News

Smoke and Sandstorm, Seen from Space

The scale of the Western crisis is demonstrated by a time-lapse photo of dust from a storm in Colorado and smoke from wildfires in New Mexico.

The video is captivating. A sheet of brown spills down from the north like a swash on a beach as three whitish-gray geysers erupt from the New Mexico highlands in the direction of the east.

What it represents is far more destructive.

Two deadly occurrences are depicted in the time-lapse photo, which was taken by a satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The first is a wildfire outbreak that began in northern New Mexico last month and has grown in size over the last two weeks as a result of an extremely dry climate and strong winds. The second is a dust storm in Colorado brought on by strong winds.

Both serve as illustrations of the kinds of natural disasters that, as a result of climate change, are growing more severe and frequent.

The NASA Earth Observatory reported that as of Tuesday, there were seven sizable fires active in New Mexico. Four of them are visible in the satellite view. The Cerro Pelado fire, which has burned about 27,000 acres close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the most western. The Cooks Peak fire, which has burned around 59,000 acres close to Taos, is the most northern. The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires, which combined into a single massive, 160,000-acre conflagration around April 22; are located immediately south of that.

An area greater than Indianapolis is covered by the 380 square miles of burning land visible in the satellite image. Numerous people have had to leave their homes due to the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire, including those in Las Vegas, New Mexico, a community of 13,000 people located approximately an hour east of Santa Fe.

Although wildfires naturally occur in Western ecosystems, human activity has made them more worse. A significant factor is drought. The American Southwest has seen the driest two decades in 12 centuries, partly as a result of climate change, and there are currently no signs that the situation will soon get better.

The wind is another significant aspect that is currently stoking all of the flames in northern New Mexico. In actuality, the Hermits Peak Fire began as a planned burn, which is a fire purposefully started under controlled circumstances to remove dry vegetation and lower the risk of larger, uncontrolled fires, but blustery, uncontrollable winds caused it to spread quickly.

The Colorado dust storm, the second event visible in the NOAA image, was likewise brought on by strong winds.

The National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colorado, warned of highly hazardous driving conditions on Friday: “Visibility is lowering to near nil and winds are gusting to 50-60 m.p.h. within this blowing dust.”

The effects of these catastrophes can be extremely extensive, as shown by the satellite images. Even though the “brownout” conditions during the dust storm were largely confined, winds carried the dust particles hundreds of miles through southeast Colorado, western Kansas, and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles.

Air quality is lowered by fine particulate matter, which also poses health risks, especially for those who already have heart or lung conditions. That holds true for all wildfire by products, including smoke, soot, and dust.

The sun turned red as far east as New York City last summer due to wildfires, which caused air quality alerts to be issued over practically the entire nation. Additionally, scientists discovered in January that harmful ozone and smoke levels were rising over most of the Western United States.

Latest

To Top