Transcript

6.25.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Wized Diary of Science and Nature, Your readers,
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Speaker 1: Kelly Taylor. I'll have stories related to science and nature,
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Speaker 1: But first a reminder that RADIOI is a reading service
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Speaker 1: intended for people who are blind or have other disabilities
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Speaker 1: that make it difficult to read printed material. Our first
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Speaker 1: story is going to come from Grist. The headline reads,
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Speaker 1: the Colorado River is vanishing and the fixes are getting weird.
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Speaker 1: June the twenty thirds the date on this article. The
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Speaker 1: crisis on the Colorado River is simple. The seven Western
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Speaker 1: states that border the essential waterway use more water than
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Speaker 1: it contains. Chronic overuse has drained its two largest reservoirs,
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Speaker 1: Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and a two decade drought
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Speaker 1: cycle has pushed them to the point of collapse. The
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Speaker 1: dream solution to this crisis is an agreement among all
1:00
Speaker 1: involved to use less water. Such a deal would decide
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Speaker 1: who must reduce consumption, which means asking which cities would
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Speaker 1: ban irrigating lawns and washing cars, and which farmers would
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Speaker 1: rip up their fields. This has proven impossible. The states
1:20
Speaker 1: have been trying to work this out since the last
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Speaker 1: dry spell in twenty twenty two, but talks have ended
1:25
Speaker 1: in frustration and name calling. The main sticking point is
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Speaker 1: between the upper basin states led by Colorado and Utah,
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Speaker 1: along with Wyoming and New Mexico, and the lower basin
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Speaker 1: states of Arizona, California, Nevada. Each side believes the other
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Speaker 1: has a legal and a moral responsibility to cut usage
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Speaker 1: during dry years. The stalemate means the Trump administration must
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Speaker 1: design a schedule of restrictions ahead of a crucial deadline
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Speaker 1: in September. So far, in to Interior Secretary Doug Bergham
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Speaker 1: has balked at resolving the quarrel. Instead, the administration is
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Speaker 1: turning to a far less controversial plan, throw money at
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Speaker 1: the problem. The Interior Department and Congress are pondering a
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Speaker 1: slew of projects that could increase supply, a reversal of
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Speaker 1: President Trump's zeal for cutting federal grants. The seven state
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Speaker 1: governors have sent Washington a wish list of over fifty
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Speaker 1: billion dollars, and several startups have their hands out as well.
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Speaker 1: Federal investment makes sense given the scale of the problem
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Speaker 1: and the intractable impasse, said Jennifer Pitt, the Colorado River
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Speaker 1: Program director at the National Audubon Society and an expert
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Speaker 1: on the governance of the river. Quote, it is something
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Speaker 1: easier for people to agree on. She said. This is
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Speaker 1: a slow moving crisis, but it is a crisis, and
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Speaker 1: we do see the federal funding come in to address
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Speaker 1: crises in other parts of the country. Just because this
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Speaker 1: is a slow moving one doesn't make it any less
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Speaker 1: worthy end quote. During a Senate committee hearing last week,
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Speaker 1: the Interior Department's drop water official, Andrea Trevnischek, said the
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Speaker 1: agency has yet to vet the wish list. She didn't
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Speaker 1: offer a specific funding request and urged lawmakers to be
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Speaker 1: quote thoughtful unquote about how they spend taxpayer money. But
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Speaker 1: senators in both parties seem to encourage new investments. Quote.
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Speaker 1: The basin should not be forced to choose between stabilizing
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Speaker 1: the present and negotiating the future, said Senator Martin Heinrich,
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Speaker 1: a Democrat from New Mexico. The possibility of new funding
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Speaker 1: marks a return to the policy of Joe Biden's administration.
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Speaker 1: During the last extreme drought in twenty twenty two, the
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Speaker 1: Interior Department paid farmers billions to leave their fields fallow,
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Speaker 1: but that money from the Inflation Reduction Act has almost
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Speaker 1: run dry. The difference now is that the roster of
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Speaker 1: proposals is far more ambitious and some far less certain
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Speaker 1: to bolster the basin's water supply. They range from desalination
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Speaker 1: plants and desert groundwater pipelines to forest ecosystem restoration. Here
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Speaker 1: are a few of the major solutions state officials and
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Speaker 1: companies are proposing. First, desalination. As the Colorado River crisis
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Speaker 1: has deepened, some cities in the Southwest have eyed desalination,
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Speaker 1: which extracts salt from seawater. A company called Poseidon Water
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Speaker 1: open such a plant in San Diego in twenty fifteen
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Speaker 1: and tried for decades to open another in Los Angeles.
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Speaker 1: The wish list to the Interior Department requests as much
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Speaker 1: as six billion dollars to build one in Baja California
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Speaker 1: to supply Arizona's vanishing Colorado River supplies. The Interior Department
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Speaker 1: also signed an agreement in early June with San Diego's
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Speaker 1: water agency that explains how that plant would help. Rather
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Speaker 1: than sending treated seawater inland, states would pay the city
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Speaker 1: to take less from the Colorado River. Arizona stands to
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Speaker 1: lose the most water during drought years, and it would
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Speaker 1: be the most likely to participate in that exchange. But
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Speaker 1: desalination is expensive, requires enormous amounts of electricity and state
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Speaker 1: of the art industrial technology. The Poseidon facility costs a
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Speaker 1: billion dollars, but San Diego has diversified its water portfolio
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Speaker 1: so much that it no longer needs all the water
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Speaker 1: it must purchase from the plant. Trading water could help
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Speaker 1: offset some of that cost. Taming tech and power. Nevada
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Speaker 1: uses less water than any state on the river, and
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Speaker 1: has cut usage in Las Vegas by replacing grass with
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Speaker 1: artificial turf. It is now seeking money to slake some
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Speaker 1: of its last thirsty industries. Power plants and data centers.
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Speaker 1: Facilities need a fraction of what agriculture requires, but they
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Speaker 1: dominate usage in the Silver State. The state's wish list
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Speaker 1: includes three hundred million dollars to retrofit its largest natural
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Speaker 1: gas plant and reduce water consumption by an amount equivalent
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Speaker 1: to more than three thousand average homes. It also seeks
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Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty million dollars to install zero water
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Speaker 1: cooling systems in airports, schools, and industrial facilities. These closed
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Speaker 1: loop systems, which recirculate the same cooled water or in
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Speaker 1: the case of data centers. Blast hot servers with cold
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Speaker 1: air have become more popular in Western states amid concerns
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Speaker 1: about the tech booms growing thirst squeezing water from the clouds.
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Speaker 1: Whereas lower basin states like Arizona and California can draw
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Speaker 1: from the Colorado River's big reservoirs on demand, northern states
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Speaker 1: at its headwaters only receive the rain and snow that
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Speaker 1: feed it. These upper basin states have been trying for
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Speaker 1: decades to engineer more precipitation, with support from Washington DC.
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Speaker 1: It sounds futuristic, but cloud seating spring salt or silver
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Speaker 1: iodide into clouds, forcing them to release water they might
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Speaker 1: otherwise retain, has proven fairly effective on a small scale.
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Speaker 1: Utah spends a few million dollars each year doing this,
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Speaker 1: and officials say it could boost annual snowpack by as
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Speaker 1: much as ten percent. In addition, a few startups are
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Speaker 1: pitching cheaper and more scalable versions of this technology. Rain
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Speaker 1: Enhancement of Florida based outfit says it has brought about
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Speaker 1: fifteen thousand homes worth of rain to a river tributary
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Speaker 1: in Utah this year. Another rain maker says it can
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Speaker 1: produce a thousand times that much by twenty thirty one.
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Speaker 1: That's enough to close the supply gap on the river.
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Speaker 1: That promise is fanciful, but these companies could secure federal
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Speaker 1: funding from an administration that loves the tech industry mining
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Speaker 1: a horde of desert groundwater. The West teams with companies
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Speaker 1: that have promised miracles, from building a three hundred mile
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Speaker 1: pipeline to tapping a horde of groundwater in Nevada. But
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Speaker 1: perhaps no project has had a longer and more turbulent
8:26
Speaker 1: history than kate Is, a proposal almost thirty years old
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Speaker 1: to export groundwater from an aquifer in the Mohave Desert.
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Speaker 1: This has drawn viciousok position from environmentalists and the Lake
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Speaker 1: California Senator Diane Feinstein, who called it a grave threat
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Speaker 1: to the desert. Kate Is experienced several setbacks during the
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Speaker 1: Biden administration. It lost to federal permit, California ended its
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Speaker 1: pipeline lease, Arizona declined to support it, and its stock
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Speaker 1: price felt almost zero. But Susan Kennedy, it's CEO, says
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Speaker 1: kateiz is flowing again with a funding agreement from the
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Speaker 1: Interior Department to study exchanges between KATE Is and the
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Speaker 1: Colorado River. The company still needs to finish two pipelines,
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Speaker 1: one to the Central Valley and another to the aqueduct
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Speaker 1: that carries Colorado River water to California. It also must
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Speaker 1: build a plant to remove contaminants in the water, but
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Speaker 1: Kennedy believes she can have the tap running by twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty eight. Quote. This isn't a competition, it's in all
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Speaker 1: of the above situation, she said, of the situation on
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Speaker 1: the river. That may be so, but the seven States
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Speaker 1: did not include Kate is on the wish list sent
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Speaker 1: to the Interior Department. Now from Popular Science, eight thousand
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Speaker 1: pounds of invasive Burmese python removed from the Florida evergrades.
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Speaker 1: The annual Florida Python Challenge is only a few weeks away,
10:01
Speaker 1: but participants will have trouble matching a new record set
10:04
Speaker 1: earlier this month. Between November twenty twenty five and April
10:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, researchers removed one hundred and seventy seven
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Speaker 1: apex predators weighing a combined eight thousand and eighty pounds
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Speaker 1: from a two hundred square mile area inside Collier County,
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Speaker 1: approximately ninety miles west of Miami the Conservancy of Southwest
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Speaker 1: Florida announced the results of this most recent effort to
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Speaker 1: call invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades and the Tallies
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Speaker 1: far surpassed their previous work. This achievement marks the organization's
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Speaker 1: first four ton removal season. Conservationists used radio telemetry to
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Speaker 1: track forty previously tagged male pythons dubbed scout snakes during
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Speaker 1: their annual mating season. To maximize the population impact, wildlife
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Speaker 1: biologist Ian Bartozek and colleagues focused on pregnant female pythons
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Speaker 1: carrying an average of seventy eggs while weighing an average
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Speaker 1: of ninety five pounds. The season's largest female python weighed
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Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty three pounds and measured seventeen feet long.
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Speaker 1: As a result of their work, researchers estimated around foury
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Speaker 1: one hundred unhatched python eggs were taken from the delicate ecosystem.
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Speaker 1: Quote These science based management efforts are suppressing local python reproduction.
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Speaker 1: With continued pressure, we hope to see these removal numbers
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Speaker 1: decline over time, Bartisek said in a statement. Burmese pythons
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Speaker 1: first arrived in Florida sometime during the nineteen seventies, likely
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Speaker 1: the result of exotic pet owners illegally releasing them into
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Speaker 1: the Everglades, with a similar climate to their native habitats
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Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia. The snakes quickly proliferated and rose to
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Speaker 1: the top of the food chain. Anywhere between one hundred
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Speaker 1: thousand and three hundred thousand pythons now live in the
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Speaker 1: subtropical region, causing an immense strain on local wildlife. Around
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Speaker 1: one in four of the female pythons caught by the
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Speaker 1: Conservancy contained the remains of white tailed deer. Quote every
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Speaker 1: python removed reduces pressure on the ecosystem. Conservancy president Rob
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Speaker 1: Moore added, now will turn to Live Science. They have
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Speaker 1: an article that is headlined NASA satellite captures wave of
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Speaker 1: warm water hundreds of miles long that signals a devastatingly
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Speaker 1: strong al Nino. This is from June twenty three. A
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Speaker 1: massive wave of warm water is making its way across
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Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean as the newly declared Alnino gets into
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Speaker 1: full swing. The band, called a Culvin wave, marks a
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Speaker 1: swell of higher than average sea levels that stretches hundreds
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Speaker 1: of miles along the equator. The anomaly is caused by
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Speaker 1: warmer waters linked to al Nino, the warm phase of
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Speaker 1: a natural climate pattern whose current iteration could become one
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Speaker 1: of the strongest ever recorded. The Sentinel six Michel Freylic
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Speaker 1: satellite captured the deviations from average sea surface height on
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Speaker 1: June eighth. Red areas indicate higher sea surfaces than usual,
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Speaker 1: or blue areas mark areas with lower surface heights. Developed
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Speaker 1: and launched in twenty twenty by NASA and the European
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Speaker 1: Space Agency and operated by the European Organization for the
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Speaker 1: Exploration of Meteorological Satellites, Sentinel six Michael FREYLIC measures changes
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Speaker 1: in sea surface height down to fractions of an inch.
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Speaker 1: The data complements measurements of sea surface temperatures that have
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Speaker 1: shown Pacific waters warming at unprecedented rates over the past
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Speaker 1: several months, leading scientists to declare the start of a
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Speaker 1: new al Nino on June eleven. When water in the
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Speaker 1: ocean won ars, it expands and takes up more space.
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Speaker 1: That translates to an increase in the height of the
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Speaker 1: water relative to the satellite and the center of Earth,
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Speaker 1: which is then picked up by the satellite's sensitive equipment.
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Speaker 1: At some points along the equator, sea surfaces are now
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Speaker 1: more than six inches higher than usual. Kelvin waves like
14:21
Speaker 1: this one form when winds in the Western Pacific near
14:24
Speaker 1: the equator weaken and temporarily reverse, blowing from west to
14:30
Speaker 1: east instead of east to west. That lets warm water
14:33
Speaker 1: gradually build up in the east, deepening the layer of
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Speaker 1: warm surface waters and preventing colder waters from rising from below.
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Speaker 1: The wave has now reached the western coast of South America.
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Speaker 1: NASA had already observed a few other Kelvin waves this year,
14:50
Speaker 1: suggesting an al Nino event was soon to follow. In
14:53
Speaker 1: January Sentinel six, Michael FREHLEYK detected one near Micronesia that
14:59
Speaker 1: dissipated around mid February. Another emerged in March in elevated
15:03
Speaker 1: sea levels near Peru. By mid May. Changes in sea
15:08
Speaker 1: surface temperature or height can alter atmospheric circulation patterns and
15:13
Speaker 1: affect the weather. Alninio often increases rainfall in the southwestern US, Columbia, Peru,
15:21
Speaker 1: and Ecuador, while rainfall in the Western Pacific tends to decrease.
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Speaker 1: The most recent Aninia, which lasted from June twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: three to April twenty twenty four, boosted global mean temperatures
15:33
Speaker 1: that made twenty twenty four, the hottest year on record
15:36
Speaker 1: and the first to breach the one point five degrees
15:40
Speaker 1: celsius warming limit, a guard rail set by the Paris Agreement,
15:45
Speaker 1: beyond which the effects of climate change become more and
15:49
Speaker 1: more catastrophic. The June eighth conditions in the Western Pacific
15:54
Speaker 1: were similar to those that occurred in nineteen ninety seven
15:57
Speaker 1: under a particularly strong Alninia. According to a statement from
16:01
Speaker 1: NASA twenty six, twenty twenty six has seen fewer Calvin
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Speaker 1: waves so far than nineteen ninety seven, but this year's
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Speaker 1: on Nina is still ramping up. Quote for now, it
16:15
Speaker 1: looks like it's going to be a big one, more
16:17
Speaker 1: so than I would have said last week. But we
16:19
Speaker 1: still need more observations to know what's going to happen,
16:22
Speaker 1: says sever In Fournier, a sea level researcher at NASA's
16:27
Speaker 1: Jet Propulsion Lab. Will turn now to the Wall Street Journal.
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Speaker 1: This article is headlined our cities were designed for the
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Speaker 1: weather of the nineteen fifties and sixties, Dated June twenty fourth.
16:45
Speaker 1: US cities have a climate problem. Their architecture, road layouts,
16:50
Speaker 1: transportation systems, and other infrastructure were designed for weather conditions
16:55
Speaker 1: that are becoming a thing of the past. Quote. A
16:58
Speaker 1: lot of infrastructure who using now was built for the
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Speaker 1: weather of the nineteen fifties and sixties, says Costa Samaras,
17:06
Speaker 1: professor of Civil and Environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Quote.
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Speaker 1: This is not the weather that we have now, and
17:13
Speaker 1: it's not the weather that we'll have in the future,
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Speaker 1: as it continues to be altered because of the emissions
17:19
Speaker 1: that lead to climate change. A key metric to watch
17:24
Speaker 1: in the coming decades will be the wet bulb temperature,
17:28
Speaker 1: a measure of combined heat and humidity. When the wet
17:31
Speaker 1: bulb temperature exceeds eighty seven degrees fahrenheit, the human body
17:36
Speaker 1: can no longer cool itself efficiently, leading to heat stroke
17:40
Speaker 1: and fever. Quote. That is a combination of temperature and
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Speaker 1: humidity that's effectively unsurvivable, says Brian Stone, professor at Georgia
17:50
Speaker 1: Institute of Technology and director of the Urban Climate Lab there.
17:55
Speaker 1: His research shows that US cities have been nearing that
17:58
Speaker 1: threshold in recent years, and he expects cities like Kansas City, Chicago,
18:02
Speaker 1: and Dallas to exceed it in the next three to
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Speaker 1: five years. Quote. We're moving into a world where we're
18:08
Speaker 1: going to have shelter in place, orders and heat waves,
18:11
Speaker 1: and we won't be able to do outdoor work like
18:13
Speaker 1: garbage collection. He says. It's a big issue. We're very
18:18
Speaker 1: close to this threshold, and most people don't even know
18:22
Speaker 1: that threshold exists. A warmer climate also brings other dangers,
18:29
Speaker 1: such as more violent storms, flooding, drought, and wildfires, but
18:35
Speaker 1: researchers and city planners are working on solutions to increase
18:38
Speaker 1: urban climate resilience. Here are some innovative techniques that could
18:43
Speaker 1: help you as cities adapt to a warmer climate in
18:45
Speaker 1: the decades to come. First, self healing grids during heat waves.
18:52
Speaker 1: Two things tend to happen to the power grid. A
18:55
Speaker 1: surge of demand as people all over the city crank
18:57
Speaker 1: up the air conditioning, and a drop in so apply
19:00
Speaker 1: as power plants and transmission lines become less efficient in
19:04
Speaker 1: the heat. The solutions, says Samaras, use artificial intelligence to
19:09
Speaker 1: re route power for maximum efficiency, eking out extra performance
19:14
Speaker 1: to avoid blackouts. Quote Grid enhancing technologies end quote are
19:20
Speaker 1: already available, but future developments in AI will make them
19:24
Speaker 1: much more effective, he says. Sensors in power lines and
19:28
Speaker 1: in the gears of wind turbines, for example, could give
19:30
Speaker 1: a finely detailed impression of traffic across different parts of
19:34
Speaker 1: the grid, and machine learning will allow the system to
19:37
Speaker 1: predict demand in different neighborhoods, gauge the power line capacity,
19:42
Speaker 1: and route power from an overloaded line to one that
19:46
Speaker 1: can handle more. Then there's block by block. The urban
19:52
Speaker 1: heat island effect is well known. Temperatures in cities are
19:56
Speaker 1: often several degrees higher than in surrounding areas due to
19:59
Speaker 1: the lack of their vegetation, the waste heat being pumped
20:03
Speaker 1: out of cars and air conditioning units, and the expanses
20:07
Speaker 1: of heat absorbing asphalt and concrete. What's less well known
20:12
Speaker 1: is how much that effect varies within cities. Stone in
20:17
Speaker 1: his colleagues at the Urban Climate Lab have started mapping
20:20
Speaker 1: heat risk in the US cities and have already found
20:23
Speaker 1: huge differences. In Atlanta, for example, he says one neighborhood
20:28
Speaker 1: can be ten to fifteen degrees hotter than another. More
20:32
Speaker 1: detailed heat mapping in the future, he says, will help
20:35
Speaker 1: city planners manage heat block by block. They will be
20:39
Speaker 1: able to run detailed simulations to try out different solutions,
20:43
Speaker 1: tree planting, reflective surfaces, green roofs, and other strategies and
20:48
Speaker 1: see how much they would reduce heat in a particular neighborhood.
20:53
Speaker 1: City farms in a crisis, There's nothing more important than
20:57
Speaker 1: access to food. Kathleen Merrigan, exis executive director of the
21:01
Speaker 1: Sweat Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State, envisions
21:07
Speaker 1: a future in which city neighborhoods become agra hoods, that's
21:11
Speaker 1: in quotes, structured around working farms. Farms could be created
21:17
Speaker 1: on vacant lots or in city parks, built into new
21:20
Speaker 1: housing developments, or added to existing buildings as intensive rooftop farms.
21:27
Speaker 1: Although such small scale activity will completely replace large rural farms,
21:32
Speaker 1: agrahoods would help cities cope with disruptions to the broader
21:36
Speaker 1: food supply chains, for instance, from mass flooding and wildfires,
21:41
Speaker 1: American says, and they would add crucial green space to
21:46
Speaker 1: reduce the heat island effect, make drainage beautiful. Flash floods
21:53
Speaker 1: are another threat that go along with a warmer climate. Quote.
21:57
Speaker 1: The expectation in the climate risk models is that there
21:59
Speaker 1: will be more precipitation when we don't need it and
22:02
Speaker 1: less when we do, says Joyce Coffee, president and founder
22:06
Speaker 1: of Climate Resilience Consulting in Chicago. Flood barriers can be
22:11
Speaker 1: effective in local areas, Coffee says, but they tend to
22:15
Speaker 1: displace the problem rather than solving it. A better solution,
22:19
Speaker 1: she says, is to build rain gardens and bioswales into cities,
22:24
Speaker 1: sunken areas filled with plants that are designed to absorb
22:27
Speaker 1: excess water. The bonus is that these areas could also
22:32
Speaker 1: be beautiful parks for city residents to enjoy In dry weather,
22:37
Speaker 1: the vegetation will cool off the local area, and they
22:40
Speaker 1: can be multifunctional. Coffee gives the example of a basketball
22:45
Speaker 1: court in the Netherlands that also serves as a giant
22:47
Speaker 1: storm drain, with seating around the edges that channels rain
22:52
Speaker 1: water down into a cistern under the court quote. There
22:57
Speaker 1: are just so many lovely ways to create or urban
23:00
Speaker 1: form that also serves as stormwater management, Coffee says. Redesign
23:07
Speaker 1: the commute. If people are to keep moving around cities
23:10
Speaker 1: during the hotter and longer heat waves of future decades,
23:14
Speaker 1: they will need public transport systems and paths for pedestrians
23:17
Speaker 1: and cyclists designed for hotter temperatures. Quote, We'll definitely see
23:23
Speaker 1: an increased focus on the resilience of public transport, says
23:28
Speaker 1: Cassie Sutherland, Managing director for Climate Solutions and Networks at
23:33
Speaker 1: C forty Cities, a global network of city mayors working
23:37
Speaker 1: on climate policy. Quote, For example, how do you make
23:41
Speaker 1: sure that buses, metro systems, and also walking and cycling
23:45
Speaker 1: routes are shaded and can still be used during heat waves.
23:52
Speaker 1: Pavements with reflective coatings can reduce local temperatures by a
23:55
Speaker 1: few degrees. She says. A network of green corridors can
23:59
Speaker 1: help you walk or cycle key routes in the cooling
24:03
Speaker 1: shade of trees. Apps can show commuters the coolest way
24:07
Speaker 1: to work, not just the fastest, and cities will need
24:10
Speaker 1: to reduce the number of cars on the road, especially
24:13
Speaker 1: gasoline powered ones. Retreat to adapt As US cities experience
24:22
Speaker 1: more heat waves in extreme weather, Stone says they may
24:25
Speaker 1: need to make radical changes to their design and layout
24:29
Speaker 1: that could include relocating residents and businesses from whole neighborhoods.
24:33
Speaker 1: He says to build defenses that will protect the rest
24:36
Speaker 1: of the city, a strategy he calls retreat to adapt. Quote,
24:42
Speaker 1: there are some properties in the United States that have
24:44
Speaker 1: flooded more than thirty times, and we have continued to
24:48
Speaker 1: rebuild them, he says. In a future of more extreme weather,
24:51
Speaker 1: that just becomes economically non viable pretty quickly. The solution,
24:57
Speaker 1: he says, is to offer compensation to residents to re
25:00
Speaker 1: build in a different area and use the flooded neighborhood
25:03
Speaker 1: to install levies and green spaces designed to absorb future
25:06
Speaker 1: flood waters before they reach the rest of the city.
25:10
Speaker 1: A similar strategy could be used in areas prone to
25:13
Speaker 1: wildfires and other natural disasters. For example, instead of rebuilding
25:17
Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades, it could have been made into a giant
25:21
Speaker 1: fire break to protect the rest of Los Angeles from
25:24
Speaker 1: future wildfires. Stone acknowledges that these are difficult decisions and
25:28
Speaker 1: are unlikely to be popular, but he thinks they will
25:31
Speaker 1: eventually become unavoidable. I don't think we can adapt to
25:35
Speaker 1: these climate risks in all areas. I think it's critical
25:38
Speaker 1: to remove populations in a way that leaves a whole.
25:42
Speaker 1: It's protective of the people we remove, and it's protective
25:44
Speaker 1: of the people who remain, because then we can use
25:47
Speaker 1: that land for critically needed climate infrastructure, and now from
25:55
Speaker 1: Popular Science, young Stone Geyser creates a new natural hot tub. No,
26:02
Speaker 1: you can't take a dip. Around four hundred and sixty
26:06
Speaker 1: five active geysers are roiling across Yellowstone National Park at
26:10
Speaker 1: any given time, with new ones regularly bubbling to the
26:13
Speaker 1: surface every year. But as impressive as they are, they're
26:17
Speaker 1: best appreciated at a distance, and there's a new pool
26:20
Speaker 1: of boiling water to avoid. Thanks to an event that
26:22
Speaker 1: began almost two years ago. On July twenty third, twenty
26:26
Speaker 1: twenty four, a hydrothermal explosion burst from Biscuit Basins Black
26:31
Speaker 1: Diamond pool sending a four hundred to six hundred foot
26:35
Speaker 1: plume of mud, rock and scalding water into the air.
26:40
Speaker 1: No one was injured, but part geologists have kept the
26:42
Speaker 1: area closed to visitors ever since. After months of relative calm,
26:48
Speaker 1: monitoring tools began picking up a low frequency acoustic signal
26:52
Speaker 1: known as infrasound, along with anomalous seismic reading in the
26:57
Speaker 1: basin on June thirteenth, twenty six. A visit to the
27:01
Speaker 1: site later that day revealed an unexpected site. A roughly
27:05
Speaker 1: three point seven mile waterway called Firehole River wasn't its
27:10
Speaker 1: typical clear color. Instead, the currents were tinted with opaque,
27:15
Speaker 1: light gray sediment. On top of that, two additional runoff
27:19
Speaker 1: channels had appeared. A review of sensor data indicated only
27:23
Speaker 1: a small rise in heat before slowly returning to ambient
27:27
Speaker 1: air temperature, which differed from a quick drop seen in
27:30
Speaker 1: previous eruptions at Black Diamond Pool. Thankfully, a nearby livestream
27:36
Speaker 1: camera previously installed revealed the culprit. At five or nine am,
27:41
Speaker 1: a dark sheet of water shot from the ground north
27:45
Speaker 1: of Black Diamond Pool that matched the seismic and infrastround upticks.
27:50
Speaker 1: Geologists returned to the site and confirmed a large amount
27:53
Speaker 1: of hydrothermal water had flowed into Firehole River via these
27:57
Speaker 1: new sets of vents. These vents offered at for underground water.
28:01
Speaker 1: They reached boiling temperature and flashed into steam, causing the
28:06
Speaker 1: explosion that rose tins of feet into the air. Well.
28:11
Speaker 1: That's all for today's Diary of science and Nature. Your
28:14
Speaker 1: reader was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for further programming
28:17
Speaker 1: on RADIOI