Like in the 1983 TV drama The Day After, that hypothesized about a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union watched by more than 100 million Americans, the global media capital Los Angeles is facing fires that are the largest in the history of the star-studded city.
Yet, as this devastating, widespread fire has developed the future brings the certainty of more exacerbated wildfires as climate changes' regression to the extreme continues unabated.
As extreme weather accelerated by climate change is normalized, we no longer must consider regression to the mean, but rather regression to the extremes as extreme weather is now normalized.
Why This Matters
The Los Angeles fires are horrific yet highlight what else is happening globally regarding climate change.
Stunning 7–9°F warming over northern Canada in 2024 as tundra and permafrost become CO2 and methane source respectively.
The transition of the Arctic tundra from a carbon sink to a carbon source is one of the dramatic changes in the Arctic that are documented in NOAA’s 2024 Arctic Report Card.
From 2001–2020 the Arctic as a whole was carbon neutral, according to the report; however, the tundra region has now shifted from a carbon sink, which it has been for millennia, into a carbon dioxide source, and it remains a methane source. The boreal forest region remains a carbon sink.
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