Air Quality By You

[Steenland]

Here in Virginia it's been weirdly orange and hazy. My son mentioned that "the whole sky looks like BladeRunner 2049." Yesterday the setting sun was apocalyptic, and later, Venus looked like Mars. Better today though.

The idea that global warming is causing the fires seems pretty far-fetched to me. Wildfires have MUCH more to do with poor forest management than climate change.

 

[Vortex37]

In my part of California it’s a bit unseasonably cool and breezy, but we don’t mind since it’s usually 90+ degrees from now until November.

We had awful air quality (over 1000 in some areas of the foothills) a couple of years ago with all the wildfires near us, but last year’s fire season wasn’t as bad as 2018-2021. So far this year things are still pretty green from all the record rain, no major fires yet (fingers crossed)

 

[Gino]

If ya look hard, ya can see some clouds poking through and an occasional bit of blue, but most of it is yellowish.

 

[JBurton]

Wildfires have MUCH more to do with poor forest management than climate change.

I won't argue the point that climate change causes wildfires (it does seem silly that 2 degrees means forest fires are more common, my comment earlier was about how everyone dismisses climate change and acts like they've been aware of the temperature trends over the last thousand or million years), but I'm curious what everybody figures was good forest management 500 years ago? Or do we figure the continent was just a dumpster fire until the anglos came and saved the day? I get that tons of dead trees and thick brush generate a fire hazard, but my understanding is we've got nowhere near the workforce to 'maintain' any significant portion of the forested areas, and that nature usually has it's own system for dealing with such things.

 

[Boudica]

I won't argue the point that climate change causes wildfires (it does seem silly that 2 degrees means forest fires are more common, my comment earlier was about how everyone dismisses climate change and acts like they've been aware of the temperature trends over the last thousand or million years), but I'm curious what everybody figures was good forest management 500 years ago? Or do we figure the continent was just a dumpster fire until the anglos came and saved the day? I get that tons of dead trees and thick brush generate a fire hazard, but my understanding is we've got nowhere near the workforce to 'maintain' any significant portion of the forested areas, and that nature usually has it's own system for dealing with such things.

500 years ago, (and still today) Mother nature manages the forest. With fire. lightening would start a fire, it would burn, until it burned itself out. Fire would clean up some of the undergrowth, kill the weaker trees and it wasn't a problem because there were no humans (or not as many) to be bothered by it. During a fire, pine trees have a built in defense mechanism and all of the pine cones shoot their seeds out so after the fire, there is new growth. I don't really think the fires are caused by global warming, but I do think they are contributing to it.

 

[Gino]

It's not that anyone was following anything at all 500 years ago, but it was still a given in the on-going life and cycles of this planet.

Over at least the past million years, glacial and interglacial cycles have been triggered by variations in how much sunlight reaches the Northern Hemisphere in the summer, which are driven by small variations in the geometry of earth’s axis and its orbit around the sun, but these fluctuations in sunlight aren’t enough on their own to bring about full-blown ice ages and interglacials. They trigger several feedback loops that amplify the original warming or cooling.....

During an interglacial:

• sea ice and snow retreat, reducing the amount of sunlight the Earth reflects.....
• warming increases atmospheric water vapor, which is a powerful greenhouse gas......
• permafrost thaws and decomposes, releasing more methane and carbon dioxide.....
• the ocean warms and releases dissolved carbon dioxide, which traps even more heat.

These feedbacks amplify the initial warming until the earth’s orbit goes through a phase during which the amount of northern hemisphere summer sunlight is minimized. Then, these feedbacks operate in reverse, reinforcing the cooling trend.
The change in temperatures can be anywhere between 5º to 15º

It was partly through their attempts to understand what caused and ended previous ice ages that climate scientists came to understand the dominant role that carbon dioxide plays in earth’s climate system, and the role it is playing in current global warming.

 

[Mike Paul]

Anyhow,

 

[Mike Paul]

Think about Nuclear fallout when it happens…
It’s gonna be everywhere…
The blast doesn’t even need to in your country…

 

[Aardvark Printing]

Depends. Rural airports, have a decent distance from trees. Of course. But miles of trees surrounding them. But they also have a more than decent distance from large infrastructure from all the other heat absorbing and then radiating things like buildings, asphalt, concrete....

Metropolitan airports May seem Open, but depending... They are also surrounded by hotels, restaurants...
My point... It's all relative to geography, but trend's seem consistent. And this planet, is a big Baby Boomer on it's way out. I say live it up.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb​

 

[richsweeney]

The private run forest do not burn up. How weird is that?

 

[DL Signs]

Here in north central Wiso it's getting pretty thick the past couple days again, and air quality alerts are getting in the danger range. I get the feeling those fires won't be out till they get buried under snow next winter.
Weather guy this morning said forecast was "smokey with a chance of sun"

 

[Boudica]

"smokey with a chance of sun"

good one! That's what most all of Aug/Sept is like around here. The smoke just sort of settles between the two mountain ranges - which keep us safe from most natural disasters, but they trap in the smoke.

 

[Stacey K]

Here in north central Wiso it's getting pretty thick the past couple days again, and air quality alerts are getting in the danger range. I get the feeling those fires won't be out till they get buried under snow next winter.
Weather guy this morning said forecast was "smokey with a chance of sun"

In Wisco also...it's definitely getting thick over here by us! Is it just me or does it smell like smoke?

Boudica - I can't imagine living like this for 2 months! i'm not a fan of this smoke stuff

 

[DL Signs]

Is it just me or does it smell like smoke?

Yesterday morning it was like walking through a campground when everyone has a fire going, haze in the air, smelled like smoke, even stung the eyes a bit. Even the deer around here are going crazy, hanging in peoples yards and open areas.

Our crew was out in your neck of the woods last week, taking down some signage in Maribel.

The smoke just sort of settles between the two mountain ranges - which keep us safe from most natural disasters, but they trap in the smoke.

Imagine what it's like in parts Canada... We're just getting the excess stuff.

 

[Boudica]

Towards the end of the summer, it seems like most of Wa State is on fire - so we get our own first hand smoke. There have already been a few wild fires this season There were a couple about 120 miles away, two weeks ago, had the region pretty smokey and dropped the air quality to dangerous (for some). One of the fires was started by some chick starting a fire in a mobile home park, and consequently burning 15 acres.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

Being in the Atlanta metro, we have air quality alerts pretty much constantly after temps get over about 92 or so. Fortunately, no smoke from Canada. (Which, I think, is also good news for them, cuz if it got this far, I think pretty much the entire country would be on fire.)

 

[Johnny Best]

Gac05 has good air in Guam. It’s good where I am also.

 

[DL Signs]

Smoke like this is as foreign to northern WI as a hurricane...

 

[Johnny Best]

A hot chick in a trailer park started the fire, excuse me, mobile home park, in Washington State. "Don't come knocken if the trailer is rocken"

 

[Stacey K]

Yesterday morning it was like walking through a campground when everyone has a fire going, haze in the air, smelled like smoke, even stung the eyes a bit. Even the deer around here are going crazy, hanging in peoples yards and open areas.

Our crew was out in your neck of the woods last week, taking down some signage in Maribel.


Imagine what it's like in parts Canada... We're just getting the excess stuff.

Yes! I was outside most of the day doing an install then I went home to work in the garden but I went in because I felt like I had to cough. Yesterday was hazy and today it is also but not like Tuesday!