This isn’t so much science journalism as a broadcast that almost anybody who enjoys news of science will also find absorbing, and disturbing. A happenstance decision to check what MPR has on its midmorning broadcast found a gem. Put it on your ipod, or just listen. The host – Kerri Miller? I think so – talks with Wade Goodwin about the fires in Texas. “Apocalypse..the trees are like matchsticks … the pine trees are exploding … not enough firefighters to go around …worst fire we’ve ever had … like a nuclear explosion …it’s jumped across rivers, it’s jumped across highways back and forth…we pulled the ground forces out, it is just too dangerous…” and with Paul Huttner, the station’s meteorologist. He’s good, too – and provides backup detail on his blog Updraft. This is, he reports, the most catastrophic weather year in US history. One topic: are we seeing a phase in the desertification of parts of the southwest that, as it is, are barely on the edge of keeping the vegetative cover they have? A little more heat and aridity in some parts of the nation, and “it’s a desert.” This end of the broadcast is clearly in the science journalism class – citation of big shot scientists, some data, some detailed explanations. He gets into Arctic ice, temperature extremes, hurricane wind shear, straight line winds, lots more. Keep listening through the newscast that interrupts the program. Speaking of arctic sea ice, Hutton mentions we may have a record summer low coming up in a week or two. Take a look for yourself. It’s right on pace to undershoot the 2007 record low.
In the meantime, Minnesota itself – pleasant, temps in the 70s, no droughts or floods to speak of.
Related:
- NYTimes DotEarth blog – Andrew C. Revkin: A Hidden Factor Behind Losses in Texas Fires ;
*Update
- AP – Seth Borenstein: Disaster in US: An Extreme and Exhausting Year ; My apologies. I set out to find disaster reporting that complements this report filed over the weekend – and forgot to include it. Borenstein adds the diddly little East Coast earthquake (I write from my office within maybe 100 yards of Hayward fault), but mostly it’s about weather-related disruptions. And these, he writes, are mostly random chance or bad luck. But “man-made global warming is increasing the odds of getting a bad roll of the dice.”
– Charlie Petit
Leave a Reply