See interventions page for extreme heat and cold interventions: adaptationatlas.org/interventions

We at @stanforddoerr.bsky.social are excited to announce a new PhD program in Global Environmental Policy, accepting applications this fall for Sept 2026 start. We're looking for folks with interest in social sciences, data science, and enviro science and who have strong quant training 1/

Nice WaPo article on air quality in National Parks, showing improvements in many parks followed by wildfire-driven reversals. Among the many impacts of wildfires, incl. directly loss of infrastructure as in Grand Canyon fires right now, smoke will make them way less enjoyable.

Wildfire season really picking up (again, for east coast + midwest). NorCal and Canadian fires sending smoke south.

This is also true for German-born scientists: they accounted for 25% of Nobels pre-1933, about 10% after, and never recovered.

What happens to science under autocracy? The rise of the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany provides an (admittedly extreme) example. Prior to the early 1930s, scientists at German institutions won a third of Nobels. 10 years later, that number was 5%, and has never recovered.

In terms of total pop exposed, LA exposures were smaller than some days in 2023 when East coast was hit with smoke from canadian wildfires (Jun 7 2023: 150M people got >10ug), but were surprisingly large given that smoke in LA stayed mostly local. (paper: eartharxiv.org/repository/v...)

Here's the relationship between annual smoke and annual mortality rates. LA fires increased annual PM2.5 values by nearly 0.5ug for millions, which we estimate increases annual mortality by 1% in that population. Again, large effects. (paper: nber.org/papers/w32307)

Here, for instance, is relationship between wildfire smoke PM and asthma & COPD emergency dept visits in CA from our recent work. Rates up dramatically at 50ug - roughly a doubling of visits for asthma. (paper: pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...)

Based on some requests, we've estimated the population in CA exposed to different levels of wildfire smoke from the recent LA fires. Tens of millions were exposed to some PM2.5 smoke, ~6m had a few days >25ug PM2.5, ~2m had a few days > 50ug. These are large numbers.

Remarkably bad air quality this morning in the Bay, thanks to an inversion and very low wind.

Sobering NYT look at climate change's ongoing impact on insurance markets in US. Note, as always, that this is from ~1.4C warming. We are on track for double that. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

live feed of @mfgrp.bsky.social dropping nature papers:

Finding 4: local jurisdictions are currently not trying to exempt these increasingly important low/moderate smoke days. They will either have to figure out how, or will increasingly be out of attainment. (7/n)

Finding 3: These trends contrast with recent tightening of national ambient air quality standards (from 12ug to 9ug). Under new standards, we estimate 1/3rd of monitors in the US would have been out of attainment in recent years; of these, more than half due to smoke. On west and east coasts! (5/n)

Finding 2: last few years of smoke are SO MUCH WORSE than previous 15 years on population weighted basis, with 2023 a substantial outlier given massive exposures in population centers in the east and midwest (and south). Of 10 worst individual smoke days on record, 5 were in 2023.

Finding 1: PM2.5 concentrations were improving substantially throughout the country but have since stagnated and then started going up in many places. We find that wildfires are to blame. Absent wildfire smoke, PM2.5 would have continued to decline almost everywhere. A victory, but for smoke.. (3/n)

New paper characterizing trends in wildfire smoke PM2.5 in the US, incl. updated daily dataset and implications for air quality regulation. Below is animation of 2023.
Paper: eartharxiv.org/repository/v...
Data (BETA version): www.stanfordecholab.com/wildfire_smoke
Quick thread:

For anyone who likes looking at pretty satellite imagery, i installed this SpaceEye plugin and it serves up live(ish) geostationary imagery as your screen background. 10/10 would recommend. Can watch storm moving down west coast, pushing smoke ahead of it. or check out this eddy west of baja rn.