Tonight 60 Minutes made the California fires and Climate Change their top story.
By Scott Pelley
At least 31 have died in the largest wildfires in California history. The east is defending itself against twice the usual number of tropical cyclones. And what may be the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth came in August in the United States. It's a torrid 2020 and it was forecast 32 years ago. In the 1980's, a NASA scientist named James Hansen discovered that climate change, driven by carbon emissions, was upon us. His graphs, of three decades ago, accurately traced the global rise in temperature to the year 2020.
Thom Porter: These are fires that nobody, when I started in this business, ever even dreamed of happening in California. Not even close.
California State Fire Chief Thom Porter 'started in this business' in 1999. That year just over one million acres burned. By 2007, it was a million and a half. In 2018, two million. This season, nearly four million acres have burned so far.
Climate isn't the only reason. Decades of aggressively putting out every forest fire allowed brush to pile up like kindling. But the warming climate has intensified heat and drought. Chief Porter showed us the length of the fire lines he's defending right now would stretch from LA to New York.
Four percent of the state has burned in total. The largest fires were ignited by storms, but because the air is so dry the rain evaporated before it reached the ground, leaving chief porter fighting dry lightning.
California smoke blew more than 2,000 miles to the east and drifted over the Pennsylvania farm of retired NASA scientist James Hansen. His 1988 paper on carbon and climate accurately predicted temperatures up to the far-off year of 2020.
James Hansen: Yeah, we're seeing exactly what we expected. But I expected that governments would be wise enough that they would begin to adopt policies to preserve the future for young people. But they haven't done that yet.
Scott Pelley: What is your forecast for the next 30 years?
James Hansen: Well, if we don't change anything, then we're going to continue to see more and more of these extreme regional events because the physics is quite simple. As you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, you increase the heating of the surface. So, at the times and places where it's dry you get more extreme droughts. The fire seasons become longer. The fires burn hotter. But at the times and places where it's wet, you get more evaporation of the water. And you get warmer, moist air, which provides greater rainfall. And it's the fuel for storms.
This summer, the Atlantic Basin has soaked beneath 23 tropical storms or hurricanes, double the usual number. Death Valley, California, hit 130 degrees -- now being evaluated as a world record. And Los Angeles reached 120.
Michael Mann: People ask, are we dealing with a new normal? And the sobering answer is, that's the best-case scenario. A new normal is the best-case scenario 'cause that sorta means, well, we've got a new situation and we just have to learn how to deal with it. But it's much worse than that. So, there are surprises in store and we're seeing some of those surprises play out now.
Here in Washington we’ve been living under California’s smoke all week, but today it rained and the air is clearer.