As we near the halfway point of 2021, we wondered what the top climate stories of 2020 were. So we researched the data and found the best stories about climate to share with you today. This will be interesting to see what the next top stories for this year will be when reviewing the information next year.
We know that many scientists noted a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions since so many people were stuck at home and unable to drive to work. Below you’ll find the top climate stories that were featured in the year 2020 during the pandemic.
Raging Wildfires
There were many raging wildfires from the West Coast of the USA to Australia that made headlines in 2020. In California, so many wildfires raged that they nearly doubled their stats of wildfires compared to the previous year!
One million acres were destroyed in California in August 2020 alone. The Amazon saw a huge destruction from wildfires, too. This has surely caused some damage to our forests and the natural habitat of wildlife in these regions of the world.
Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane!
We saw a significant influx of hurricanes in 2020. It seems once the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season started it was unable to control itself. There were 30 named hurricanes in 2020, which far surpassed recent years’ data.
For the second time ever, they had to move to supplemental names for hurricanes because they just wouldn’t stop coming. The reason for these early and long-lasting hurricanes is the warming of ocean water. As oceans continue to warm, hurricanes are created earlier and last longer.
Pandemic Driven Carbon Dioxide Drop
Another top climate story of 2020 is the pandemic-driven carbon dioxide drop! Since many flights were grounded and most people had to work from home, it created a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These dangerous chemical levels dropped about 7% during the height of the pandemic in 2020.
This data has made many realize the true human impact of climate warming. Experts would like to see the next year’s data align or be higher of a drop in carbon dioxide levels released, however, as regions start to open back up, they doubt we’ll see a continued decline.
As you can see there were a lot of changes in weather patterns and greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic. Some of these top climate stories of 2020 could be seen as a silver lining while others were rather detrimental. One thing’s for sure, we learned a lot about the climate changes and human behavior that’s changing our environment’s temperature and weather patterns.