Last year wafts of smoke from Canadian wildfires caused hazy skies and poor air quality across areas of America, making for some insane photos, resulting in Air Quality Health Advisories for NYC, and causing the city to become one of the worst major cities in the world for air quality.
And it looks like us New Yorkers are going to have to get used to this now as climate experts have told Gothamist smoke and orange hazy skies will not only return to NYC this summer but likely become the new norm.
Experts have stated that in the wake of recent climate change concerns, wafting smoke taking over NYC will become more frequent. That means more New Yorkers will have to face the uncomfortable health effects that are caused by the smoke, including irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and shortness of breath.
Mark Wysocki, a Cornell University professor who served as the New York State climatologist, told Gothamist:
This [Canadian wildfire smoke] is a new norm. This is real. We’re going to have to have an attitude adjustment here. We’re going to have to start dealing with the fact now that we’re going to have air quality alerts more often.
Canada’s fire season last year was the worst one on record–2.5 x worse than what’s typically seen–with over 45 million acres of land burned. And as most of Canada is experiencing drought conditions, some of last year’s wildfires are still burning.
The New York Post writes that there are currently 90+ wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta.
Mike Flannigan, an emergency management and fire science scholar at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, told Gothamist:
The warmer it gets, the more lightning we see and the atmosphere gets more efficient at sucking moisture out of that dead vegetation in the forest floor. That means more fuel, vegetation that’s available to burn. [That] leads to those higher intensity fires that are…impossible to extinguish.
Loretta Mickley, a senior research fellow in chemistry-climate interactions at Harvard University, added that by 2050 the overall fire activity in Quebec is expected to double, meaning a “greater risk of more large smoke events for the Eastern U.S.”
So, how do we protect ourselves when this happens?
Glenn McGillivray, managing director at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, recommends people use their air conditioners or air filters if hazy conditions return to NYC. And, as always, he suggests limiting your time spent outside when air quality alerts are in effect.