"We are living in a world that has been influenced by global warming, and we're feeling the impacts," Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, said, explaining the causes and context of this unusual weather event. He told Business Insider that his research group recently found that the frequency of extreme wildfire weather in California has doubled over the last 40 years.
Long term warming, the temperature's effect on the dryness of vegetation, and the ignition of strong winds lead to these extreme fires. The wind is also responsible for sending smoke towards San Francisco. The combined smoke flumes from fires around California have blanketed the Pacific coast, blocking sunlight and causing the eerie orange sky.
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Several people, including Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier, noted that they had to manually turn off color-correcting camera features to capture the view.
Diffenbaugh emphasized that that wildfires result from a confluence of conditions, and warming global temperatures are just one factor that people can consider in disaster prevention. He warned that with temperatures projected to increase three to five degrees by the end of the century, there will likely be fewer resources to fight many fires burning simultaneously.
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