It’s hard to find a place in the U.S. that isn’t impacted by wildfires and smoke. Dry landscapes, warmer temperatures and more development near forested areas all contribute to massive wildfires across North America each year. Smoke and haze from these fires can travel hundreds of miles from their source, affecting the health and wellbeing of communities across the U.S. Given these impacts, scientists rely on models that try to predict the severity of wildfires and smoke.
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In the depths of the Pacific Ocean, just off the upper West Coast of the United States, a collision between an unstoppable force and an immovable object has been gathering energy for hundreds of years. The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), where the Juan de Fuca and North American tectonic plates meet, must release this pent up energy eventually in an event many refer to as “the really big one”.
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) today announced $10.4 million in funding to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN), based at University of Washington, to support the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system. Some $7.3 million of the funding will go to the UW. The PNSN is responsible for monitoring earthquakes and volcanoes in Washington and Oregon. It is a partnership between the University of Washington, the University of Oregon and the USGS.
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Wildfire season is already upon us. In 2018, roughly 1700 fires occurred in Washington, burning 500,000 acres of forested land and immediately affecting thousands of people in rural communities. Wildfires have a larger, regional impact too – long term exposure to smoke can increase the risk of heart and lung disease, as well as increase sensitivity to asthma. So what’s in store for Washington this year as the 2019 wildfire season gets underway?
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UW College of the Environment and Seattle visual analytics company Tableau Software teamed up to create a new, interactive visualization for historical observations of temperature and precipitation in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana, and for Washington snowpack. The free online tool lets anybody interact with the records going back as far as 1881 and look for significant trends. “This tool lets anyone, from researchers to meteorologists to members of the public, look at the actual data to motivate why we should care about our climate changing, and see how it is changing in our own backyard,” said project lead Karin Bumbaco, the assistant state climatologist for Washington.
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