Wildfire activity in the United States is rapidly changing. Many of these changes are felt throughout the West as weather conditions become hotter and drier due to climate change.
California continues to experience drought conditions throughout most of the state despite the recent rains. The ongoing drought has led to a dramatic increase in wildfires. Six of the top 10 most destructive and deadly wildfires in California have occurred within the past five years.
The damage from wildfires is not the only impact felt by communities across the state. Areas not prone to fires suffer from degraded air and water quality – direct consequences of these extreme events.
In this talk, Dr. Neal Driscoll describes the scientific and technological expertise at UC San Diego that is making California more resilient to climate change.
Through a vast state-wide fire camera network with state-of-the-art sensor technology, ALERTCalifornia helps support data-driven decision making before, during and after wildfires. This amazing big data tool will hopefully help not just firefighters, but climate scientists better understand wildfires and their impact on our communities and our climate as a whole.