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Smoke drifts thousands of miles off Australia’s coast in early
January. Image NOAA/CIRA |
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But hurricane, floods, and wildfires intersected with the pandemic in ways that tested emergency response systems in ways they haven’t before. Piling the climate crisis on top of a public health crisis not only put evacuees in danger of contracting covid-19 while simultaneously losing everything they owned, it also strained disaster response resources and almost certainly contributed to ongoing disaster fatigue already plaguing first responders. This year will leave indelible scars on the landscape for years or even decades to come. The impacts will linger even longer in the atmosphere, where carbon dioxide released from fires will stay for a century or more. To be sure, the human toll of the weather disasters that befell us this year is very real, but the best way to truly grasp the monumental scope of what’s happening to the planet is from space. As we prepare to bid good riddance to 2020, these are the moments that stood out for the damage they’ve done to society and the biosphere. |
We rung in the New Year with Australia ablaze amid a record-setting fire season.
The satellite image above shows smoke streaming off the continent thousands of miles out to sea. At one point, it encircled the entire Southern Hemisphere.
The list of maladies tied to the fires and smoke is long.
They include more than 3 billion animals dead, an area as large as Washington state burned, smoke-stained snow in New Zealand, the most toxic air on Earth in Sydney, a $1.5-billion medical bill, and double the annual average of Australia’s carbon pollution pumped into the atmosphere.
About the only positive—if you can even call it that—to come of the bushfire was a whole new style of fundraising to help those in need tailor-made for the digital age.
Scientists have suggested Australia’s previous climate is no more as the continent rapidly warms, and the bushfire season from hell was a flammable showcase of what the future holds.
On their own, each of the numerous weather calamities that befell the world in 2020 would be a crisis.
But hurricane, floods, and wildfires intersected with the pandemic in ways that tested emergency response systems in ways they haven’t before.
Piling the climate crisis on top of a public health crisis not only put evacuees in danger of contracting covid-19 while simultaneously losing everything they owned, it also strained disaster response resources and almost certainly contributed to ongoing disaster fatigue already plaguing first responders.
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| Pyrocumulus cloud forming over the August Complex Fire in California on Sept. 9. Image: Pierre Markuse/Flickr |
This year will leave indelible scars on the landscape for years or even decades to come. The impacts will linger even longer in the atmosphere, where carbon dioxide released from fires will stay for a century or more.
To be sure, the human toll of the weather disasters that befell us this year is very real, but the best way to truly grasp the monumental scope of what’s happening to the planet is from space. As we prepare to bid good riddance to 2020, these are the moments that stood out for the damage they’ve done to society and the biosphere.
| IMAGES | |
| Earth Looked Like Hell From Space This Year | Australia Firestorm |
| Siberia and the Arctic Burn, Too | West Coast Wildfires |
| Too Many Hurricanes | A Derecho Crushes the Midwest |
| Big ‘berg | Big Snow |
Links
- (AU) Heat Is The 'Silent Killer' Of Australia's Bushfire Season And Experts Say Climate Change Is The Root Cause
- Climate Change: 2020 Set To Be One Of The Three Warmest Years On Record
- Born In The Ice Age, Humankind Now Faces The Age Of Fire – And Australia Is On The Frontline
- (AU) Australia Endures Hottest Spring Ever, With Temperatures More Than 2C Above Average
- Gizmodo Year In Review
- (AU) 2020 Climate Year in Review - Legal Insights
- Lethal Heating Bushfire Posts
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