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“Many of the impacts of climate change we are seeing are laying out faster, and are greater, than what we predicted just a decade ago or so,” Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, told us on Friday.
In the West, hotter weather has dried out the soil. Low soil moisture makes heat waves hotter because the cooling effect of water evaporating from the ground is reduced. Dry soil hardens and takes up less moisture when it does rain. Heat shrinks the annual mountain snowpack and subsequent runoff.
All that cascades into higher temperatures and low humidity that correlate with stronger fires.
The fires not only take lives and destroy infrastructure. They also pollute our air with smoke and our water with the hazardous chemical runoff from burned structures, making people sicker. And the huge financial costs of recovery make it harder for governments and businesses to take those measures, in the first place, that would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases — the fundamental cause of climate change.
Here in the Midwest, we are experiencing similar cascading effects from a rare Aug. 10 derecho. In Chicago alone, a city already struggling with a shrinking urban canopy, we lost thousands of trees.
The loss of trees will create more heat islands, more flooding and poorer air quality because trees soak up water and filter pollutants from the air. More flooding will increase the number of times overflowing storm water carries untreated sewage into the lake, polluting our drinking water. Dirtier water and air will trigger more health problems.
The loss of trees also carries a psychological cost as neighborhoods no longer get the emotional boost of the shade and beauty of trees and birds and other wildlife. And the simple work of removing damaged branches and trees knocked down in the storm is proving to be a financial strain on the city.
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