Wednesday Top of the Scroll: Wildfire smoke has covered up to 70 percent of California in recent years, affecting land and water: Study
Wildfire smoke covered as much as 70 percent of California in recent years — wreaking havoc not only on land, but also in the state’s vast freshwater ecosystems … according to [a UC Davis] study published on Wednesday in Communications: Earth & Environment. … What [researchers] found was that while wildfire smoke does change light, water temperature and oxygen levels, it does so to a different extent — depending on lake size, depth, smoke cover and nutrient levels. Subsequent decreases in photosynthesis and respiration rates can then influence everything else, [said Adrianne Smits, the lead author of the study] “Food webs, algal growth, the ability to emit or sequester carbon — those are dependent on these rates,” she added. “They’re all related, and they’re all being changed by smoke.”
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