Climate change is having a devastating impact on the United States, particularly when it comes to wildfires. A recent study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment has found that human-caused climate change led to an additional 15,000 deaths from wildfire air pollution in the continental US during the 15-year period ending in 2020.

The study, led by Oregon State University researcher Bev Law, is the first to quantify the number of people dying due to a warming climate causing fires to release increasing amounts of fine particulate matter into the air. This phenomenon, known as PM2.5, can be inhaled deeply into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream, posing serious health risks.

The researchers estimate that during the study period, a total of 164,000 deaths resulted from wildfire PM2.5, with 15,000 of those attributed to climate change. This means that absent climate change, the total would have been 149,000. The average annual death rate from wildfire PM2.5 during this period was 5.14 per 100,000 people, roughly double the US death rate from tropical cyclones like hurricanes.

The economic burden associated with these extra deaths is staggering, estimated at $160 billion. This figure takes into account productivity losses, healthcare costs, and a concept known as value of statistical life, which assigns a monetary value to reduction in mortality risk.

California, Oregon, and Washington bore the greatest economic burden from climate-driven wildfire PM2.5, according to the study. “Without efforts to address climate change,” Law noted, “wildfires and associated fine particulate matter will continue to increase.” The researchers project that by midcentury, relative to the decade ending in 2020, mortality from smoke will rise by at least 50%, with resulting annual damages of $244 billion.

The study highlights the urgent need for action to address climate change and mitigate its impacts on human health. As Law emphasized, exposure to PM2.5 is a known cause of cardiovascular disease and is linked to the onset and worsening of respiratory illness. The ongoing trends of increasing wildfire severity track with climate projections, underscoring how climate change manifestations like earlier snowmelt, intensified heat waves, and drier air have already expanded forest fire extent and accelerated daily fire growth rates.

The research was conducted by an interdisciplinary team from Oregon State University, the University of California, Merced, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School. Their findings serve as a stark reminder of the need for collective action to address the climate crisis and protect public health.

The 2024 US Coastal Community Report Cards have been released by the William & Mary’s Batten School and VIMS, providing valuable insights into sea level trends and projections for 36 coastal communities across the country. This year’s report cards feature an interactive dashboard and incorporate data from additional tide gauge stations in Annapolis, MD; Solomons Island, MD; Yorktown, VA; and Fort Myers, FL.

Unlike average global sea level rise projections, these report cards consider regional factors such as geological uplift, land subsidence, ocean currents, and other processes that impact local sea levels. “Many people who live near the coast want to know what they can reasonably expect over the next few decades,” says Molly Mitchell, an assistant professor at the Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences & VIMS. “Our reports are created using observed tide gauge data from the past 55 years and reflect the exact experience at the location of the gauge.”

The report cards group localities into four regions: East Coast, Gulf Coast, West Coast, and Alaskan Coast. Each report card displays monthly sea level averages, high-and low-water levels caused by storms and other transient events, as well as a decadal signal showing the influence of longer-term climate patterns such as El Niño.

The projections also show the range of sea level rise within the 95% confidence interval, allowing individuals and municipalities to plan adequately for the highest predicted rates of sea level rise. Most locations continue a trend of accelerating sea level rise; however, Mitchell notes that projections have remained mostly uniform since reporting began in 2018, apart from a few notable exceptions.

“One interesting new trend is the acceleration occurring in southeastern states such as South Carolina and Georgia,” said Mitchell. “We continue to see the fastest rates of sea level rise in Gulf states like Texas and Louisiana, but many of the East Coast stations are accelerating quite quickly, likely due to patterns of water distribution related to glacial melt from the Greenland ice sheet.”

Mitchell also notes that most West Coast localities have been fairly stable, despite past predictions that they would increase rapidly. This has led to some questions about why.

Information about the processes most affecting regional sea levels is listed on the Batten School & VIMS website: List of cities, states and processes. Emeritus Professor John Boon launched the sea level report cards in 2018 following the publication of the study Anthropocene Sea Level Change: A History of Recent Trends Observed in the U.S. East, Gulf and West Coast Regions, which showed a notable increase in sea level acceleration rates beginning in 2013-2014.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease that affects pigs, with a mortality rate of up to 100%. The cost of an outbreak has been estimated at $80 billion. To manage an ASF outbreak effectively, testing and containing the infection are crucial.

Researchers from North Carolina State University used a model called PigSpread to simulate the spread of ASF in densely populated swine states. They found that sampling and laboratory capacity were significant concerns, particularly when samples were tested within the state.

During an outbreak, health officials must travel to farms, collect blood samples, and send them to labs for testing. To prevent the disease from spreading through sample collectors, they must wait 72 hours between sampling visits. The model used population and movement data to simulate the spread of ASF in both large and small outbreak scenarios.

The results showed a median of 27 outbreaks in 150 days. For the median outbreak scenario, blood and oral samples had to be taken from pigs in over 3,000 barns. Assuming that 31 samples per barn are necessary for surveillance, the lowest number of personnel needed to get samples without delaying the process varied between 136 and 367.

However, this number could increase to between 833 and 3,115 in large epidemic scenarios. The researchers estimated that in 50% of outbreak scenarios, at least 238 sample collectors would be required.

Laboratory capacity was also a concern, as only specific labs have the ability to process these samples. The model capped daily laboratory capacity in the study area at 1,000 samples per day. The median delay for processing without sample pooling was 92 days, which went up to a maximum of five years in the worst scenarios.

Mitigating factors such as reducing downtime for samplers and utilizing oral samples did decrease the sampling time, but further evaluation is needed. The researchers emphasized that looking closely at current sampling strategies could enhance preparedness before an outbreak.

Their work appears in Preventive Veterinary Medicine and is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under award AP23VSSP0000C088.