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Environmental News For The Week Ending 09 May 2019
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at
GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
Major coronavirus metrics continue to head lower in the US, and now also globally. New cases in the US during the week ending May 8th were down 18.6% from new cases during the week ending May 1st, and are now down 83.3% from the January peak; this week also saw fewer new cases than any week since September. This week s US deaths attributed to Covid were 6.8% lower than the prior week s, and down 80.5% from the January high; US Covid deaths are now at the lowest rate since since the second week of July.
Giant sequoia still smouldering from 2020 California wildfire
A giant sequoia has been found smouldering and smoking in a part of Sequoia National Park that burned in one of California s huge wildfires last year.
The smouldering tree was found recently by scientists and fire crews surveying the effects of the blaze, which was ignited by lightning last August and spread over more than 699 square kilometres of the Sierra Nevada.
It took five months to fully contain.
A giant sequoia has been found smouldering and smoking in an area of Sequoia National Park burned by one of the huge wildfires that scorched California last year.(Tony Caprio/National Park Service via AP)
How a smoking giant sequoia has burned since 2020
2021-05-10 18:42:19 UTC
On a long, recent trudge through forest burned in California s 2020 Castle Fire, a six-person survey crew peered at a curiosity in the distance. We saw a little tiny smudge of white and wondered if it was snow on a distant slope, said Nate Stephenson, a forest scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Upon closer inspection, it wasn t snow. It was smoke, coming from an iconic giant sequoia. It would put out puffs of smoke, recalled Stephenson, of the April 22 sighting.
The remote tree has smoldered (burning without flames) since fires torched sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in September 2020. The rare smolder is representative of the West s intensified modern fire regime: A potent combination of warming climes and vastly overgrown, mismanaged forests, among other factors, has left even the stalwart giants of the Sierra Nevada vulnerable to flames. They re the largest trees on