AccuWeather Forecasting Senior Director Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the March 14 edition of Climate In The News.
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00:00We're covering a couple of interesting climate stories today. We'll start with
00:04how hurricanes can impact wildfire risk in the southeast U.S. and then turn to a
00:08creature that's been on this planet for a hundred million years. Right on this
00:13first story though from Inside Climate News, hurricane impacts in the southeast
00:17obviously we know them for flooding, storm surge, but the downed trees can
00:21have a significant impact on how wildfires occur and spread and we've seen
00:25that here since Helene devastated a lot of the southeast with downed trees back
00:29in the fall of 2024. Yeah we just covered that about the western states
00:32having a problem with that now we're focused on the southeast and Helene
00:36dropped hundreds of thousands of trees, branches across the region and that just
00:40added fuel to these fires that we saw really develop across the fall through
00:45the winter into the early spring across parts of the Carolinas and Georgia so a
00:49big problem down there. Yeah I think one of the interesting things too is that we
00:53think about the western U.S. having a lot of fires which is true but the
00:55southeast United States actually has more fires in any part of the country
00:59they may not be as big but those wildfires are a natural part of the
01:02ecosystem too. Yeah and unfortunately we're seeing a big shift in population
01:07into those areas people building within the forest or right up into the
01:10grassland areas so this is putting a lot of people in danger with some of these
01:14big fires. Some of the mitigation strategies obviously prescribed burns
01:18where they come with their risks too. Yeah they unfortunately with climate
01:21change we're seeing a shrinkage of the prescribed burn season what they call
01:26that and that's again that's not a good thing. And people can certainly have
01:30different techniques to protect their home you can clear dry brush around your
01:33home you can clear gutters of dry pine needles and things like that so
01:36certainly some individual strategy you can take at your own home to help
01:40protect your home from fire risk. Our second story from ABC News about
01:44butterfly populations and how they've been rapidly declining these
01:47creatures been in the planet for a hundred million years Brett but the last
01:5020 years a pretty comprehensive study shows a 22% decline in a wide range of
01:55butterfly populations across the US. Yeah just not the monarchs over the past year
01:59actually they saw an increase but that's the exception rather than a rule
02:02actually monarch populations way down still below normal but overall we've
02:06seen a 22% decrease in general population of butterflies across the
02:10United States a third of that number has seen a significant drop-off in
02:14population and a lot of that is due to climate change the drying and the
02:19warming of the atmosphere across the southwestern US. Yeah and those
02:24temperatures that are going up in the southern latitudes have sort of
02:27decreased the range in which these butterflies can live and all that also
02:30can be related to habitat loss to where people are either removing different
02:35plants or other types of habitat that the butterflies rely on to be able to
02:39live. Yeah exactly and another problem is with less butterflies we're seeing less
02:43pollination less food for birds and so what can you do what can people do well
02:49you can make your yard much more habitable for butterflies also reduce
02:54the amount of pesticides that's a real big problem. Certainly some tips there on
02:57the butterflies as well as the fire risk for your home today that you can do at
03:00your own home. Thank you Brett for that information for other stories about
03:03climate you can find that at AccuWeather.com slash climate