Wildfire Smoke and High Heat Have Something in Common. Guess What.

and Between the dangerous heat baking Texas and the Southeast, and the wildfire smoke filling the skies throughout the Upper Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic, people across a huge part of the United States have been seeking relief from the outside world in recent days. The two threats this week arent connected directly. But a common factor is adding to their capacity to cause misery. Human-caused climate change is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke. Climate change is the elephant in the room that is worsening wildfires and their effects on air quality, said John C. Lin, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah. As this years Canadian blazes have shown, climate-related disasters are becoming international affairs, not just local or regional ones, Dr. Lin said. The weather has always been a combination of mild norms and occasional extremes, but the burning of fossil fuels is loading the dice in favor of weather on the warmer end. On Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 million Americans were living under heat advisories from the National Weather Service. Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The New York Times We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? . Want all of The Times? .