Drought, Weather & Snowpack

Bird populations have collapsed in the desert along the Nevada-California border, and climate change could be to blame, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the past century, the number of bird species has fallen by an average of 43 percent at survey sites across an area larger than New York state.

In the summer, all we talk about is rain. Walk into a diner or a barn, or just run into someone at the store, and the first question anyone asks – even before, “How are you?” – is, “Did you get any rain?” It’s the same in New Mexico as in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and California.

Hailstorms inflict billions of dollars in damage yearly in North America alone, and the cost will rise as the growing population builds more homes, offices and factories, climate and weather experts said Tuesday. The role of climate change in hailstorms is harder to assess, the experts said at a conference at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Bird populations in the Mojave are plummeting for lack of water, in an imbalance driven by climate change. A new study from UC Berkeley finds shrinking rainfall has led to the loss of more then 40 percent of bird species, in a habitat that relies heavily on birds for basic functions such as pollinating plants and acting as both predator and prey.

At the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, Dr. [Mark] Finney and other researchers are recreating and studying whirls, as well as the paths that out-of-control blazes cut through millions of acres of forests and grassland in the West. The scientists are racing to develop a deeper understanding of the combined effects of a warmer climate, massive tree die-offs that feed the wildfires, and developments encroaching into the wilderness.