Mesmerizing video: As three gray-white geysers flow eastward from the mountains of New Mexico, a brown patch from the north swirls down a beach.
What it represents is much more destructive.
Time-lapse images captured by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites show two terrifying events happening in the western United States. The first is a Wildfire broke out in northern New Mexico started last month and has increased over the past two weeks, fueled by extreme drought and high winds. The second was a dust storm caused by intense winds in Colorado.
Both are examples of the types of disasters that are becoming more severe and frequent as a result of climate change.
Seven major fires burned in New Mexico on Tuesday, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. Satellite images show four of them. The westernmost is the Cerro Pelado Fire, which covered about 27,000 acres near Los Alamos National Laboratory. The northernmost is the Cooks Peak fire, which covers about 59,000 acres near Taos. Just south of it is Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Firemerged around April 22 into a giant, 160,000-acre blaze.
The total area of land burned in the satellite images is about 380 square miles, an area larger than Indianapolis. Especially the Hermits Peak / Calf Canyon fire forced thousands of people to evacuate their homesincluding in Las Vegas, NM, a town of 13,000 people about an hour east of Santa Fe.
Wildfires are a natural part of ecosystems in the West, but human activity has made them a lot worse. Drought is a major cause. The past two decades driest in 12 centuries in the southwestern United States, most because of climate changeand no sign that condition will soon improve.
Another important factor is the wind, which is powering all the fires in northern New Mexico now. In fact, the Hermits Peak Flame began as a prescribed burn – that is, a flame intentional settingunder controlled conditions, to clear dry vegetation and reduce the risk of larger, uncontrolled fires – but fierce, unpredictable winds blew it out control.
High winds are also responsible for the second phenomenon visible in the images released by NOAA: a dust storm in Colorado.
“Visibility is down to near zero and winds are blowing 50-60 mph in this blowing dust,” the National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colo., said on Twitter on Fridaywarn drivers of extremely dangerous conditions.
Satellite imagery highlights how widespread the effects of such disasters can be. While the “brown grain” conditions were relatively localized during the dust storm, the winds carried the dust particles hundreds of miles southeast of Colorado, western Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandles.
Fine particulate matter reduces air quality and dangerous to health, especially for people with underlying lung or heart conditions. That applies to dust as well as smoke, soot and other byproducts of wildfires.
Last summer, forest fire lead to air quality warnings over most of the country and the sun turns red as far east as New York City. And the researchers found in january that hazardous levels of smoke and ozone have increased in much of the western United States.
