In an effort to adapt to the social conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Casa Círculo Cultural (CCC) organization not only continued its online activities, but also launched the innovative Casa Círculo Cultural Mobile program.
This program conducts cultural and artistic activities in parks and public places in Redwood City, following the hygiene and safety measures recommended by health specialists.
"I really like the activities that Casa Círculo Cultural is doing because they are doing them outdoors and the kids really enjoy it because they have been spending a lot of time at home taking online classes," said Alma Cristal's mom. "For them, it's super important to get out, so thank you so much to Casa Círculo Cultural for taking the time and thinking about the little ones," she added. Alma is a 5-year-old who attended CCC's painting and crafts class at Spinas Park in Redwood City on Saturday, May 15.
"I made a mouse, a wolf and a cow," Alma told us. "They taught me that when you mix paints together, you make different colors. I love to paint a lot because I make pretty things.
"My daughter is having so much fun making a rock family," said Maria, who also took her little girl to CCC classes at the park. "Thank you for doing this activity for the kids because it keeps them busy and fun."
The CCC-Mobile program uses a medium-sized RV-type vehicle, which transports tents and all the materials needed for outdoor activities.
This program contributes to the emotional and physical health of the city's inhabitants. It also facilitates the necessary reappropriation of our parks as ideal spaces for coexistence and community communication, which unfortunately was fragmented during the pandemic.
Today, more than 120 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that they will no longer have to wear masks in any environment, news that seemed to be the announcement that the country reached the light after a long dark tunnel, however, experts believe that there is still a long way to go.
Harvard Communicable Disease Center director Dr. Marc Lipsitch said it is "quite unlikely, even with existing vaccines, that the country will reach a level of herd immunity where transmission is almost impossible on a sustained basis and where the virus essentially disappears."
He said this during a briefing held by Ethnic Media Services, in which he said that there are still misunderstandings about what herd immunity is, so he clarified that this is simply the existence of people in a population that are totally or partially immune and that stop transmission by hindering the passage of the virus through them.
He explained that while the United States is at a point where the virus cannot be transmitted in a sustained way, where each case is not even replaced, at the beginning of the pandemic each COVID-19-positive person could infect four to five people.
Given this, he said that to reach a point where social behavior is normal, the kind we had before the pandemic and without masks, transmission should be reduced by a factor of an equal number of people, however, the variants of the virus have increased transmissibility.
In that sense, he said, to achieve a reduction in transmission by a factor of five means immunizing four-fifths of the population so that what were five infections become one.
"On that notion, we need to immunize eighty percent of the population. That means fully immunizing them, meaning they have to be fully protected against the ability to transmit the virus and the vaccines we have certainly protect to a large extent, but they don't seem to be 100 percent protective. They're very good, but they're not 100 percent.
However, he stressed that the task will not be easy due to the levels of reluctance of the population to obtain the vaccine, coupled with the continuing challenges of access to immunization.
Added to that, he said, "the fact that we're not vaccinating our entire population because children under the age of 12 are not eligible, I think it's very unlikely that, as a nation, we're going to uniformly reach the required coverage of probably 85 or 90 percent.
That is why, he said, vaccination of those most vulnerable should continue to be a priority, especially when it is not yet known how long immunity will last with the vaccine and whether revaccination will be necessary.
For Ben Newman, head of virology at Texas A&M University's Global Health Research Complex, "bubbles are beautiful, but they don't last long in this world," and a bubble that can create any vaccine is fragile.
"Unfortunately we know that immunity declines and we know from the limited studies that exist that there is a certain rate at which B cells, T cells and antibodies will decline over time. But we don't know exactly what is the point at which a person stops being protected. We just know it's a matter of time, and that's why I would oppose any of the partial solutions," he said.
Faced with this, he explained that the only way out is "a single global solution, which would be to vaccinate, literally, everyone. And not just vaccinate them, but vaccinate them within a certain window. The window, maybe six months or a year, and that's the challenge.
However, unlike Lipsitch, he believes that vaccines should not only go to small groups or vulnerable groups, or take partial measures "as we have done so far", but should be applied collectively.
"I really don't like the way this has been handled so far and what I'm seeing is the greater reluctance of people with proximity to solutions and the greater desire for solutions from people who are further away and I think that's a terrible thing," he stressed.
"I think when a lot of people calculate whether or not to take precautions or get vaccinated, they're thinking about the original versions of the virus and yes, at least in this particular place and time, there's about a 100 percent chance that you're going to run into something that grows faster and has the potential to spread further and maybe hit harder than one would expect," he added.
And that is because, he explained, "we have underestimated as a world, not even as the United States, the virus time and time again. We've relaxed restrictions and we've seen the virus come back.
That's why he felt that the CDC's announcement that those who are fully vaccinated can stop wearing masks may not be the path to the most rapid extinction of the virus, so he called on everyone to get the vaccine and keep wearing masks until infection numbers drop much further.
Peter Maybarduk, director of the Public Citizen's Access to Medicines Group, emphasized the international project COVAX - Global Access Fund for COVID-19 Vaccines - an alliance driven by public and private actors with the objective of guaranteeing equitable access to the vaccines that are developed against the COVID-19 coronavirus, being one of the pillars of the accelerated access to tools against the deadly virus.
COVAX is co-led by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), the Coalition for Promoting Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and aims to accelerate the development and manufacture of vaccines against EVID-19 and to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all countries worldwide.
During the press conference, he explained that COVAX's goal is to vaccinate, essentially, 20 percent of the world, preferably this year, which means two billion doses.
This, he said under two main streams: one for self-funded countries. These are rich countries that essentially buy into the COVAX fund because that way they have access to a broader portfolio of vaccines than they would necessarily be able to buy on their own.
So far, COVAX has only been able to ship 64 million doses to countries that urgently need the vaccine to get by - that's about a quarter of the doses that have been administered in the United States.
"Hardly enough doses for even one of the largest middle-income countries in the world, let alone 92 countries."
Thus, only 340 million people in the world are fully vaccinated, less than 5 percent of the world's population, "so we have a long way to go, but we expect a rapid increase".
And is that the production volumes of vaccines licensed by COVAX are far from what is needed, however, according to estimates, it is believed that there will be 10 billion doses by the end of this year.
He added that it is true that the U.S. is prioritizing its own access to raw materials for vaccine production, which puts producers abroad in dilemmas and does not allow other countries access to inoculation in a timely manner.
"We shouldn't just cross our fingers and assume it's all going to work, more doses are needed and we believe it's critically important to urgently increase manufacturing capacity," he said.
Funding is important for COVAX to continue to help other countries obtain the necessary vaccines, however, income has yet to be injected into the fund. So far, it is believed that many people around the world, especially in adverse conditions, will not be able to get vaccinated until 2023.
According to analyses with engineers at Imperial College, it is possible to produce eight billion doses of RNA vaccines in a year and make up the global shortfall. "If we invest significantly and the investment required could be twenty-five billion dollars. That's not a small amount of money."
In that sense, he pointed out that it is necessary that governments with ample economic capacity such as the U.S. can sit at the table with large pharmaceutical companies to help make more doses available for the COVAX fund and thus support the most vulnerable nations, and finally all, together, get out of a pandemic that many still do not see, not even close, that things will get better.
"It has to be a much more integrated effort. We think it's quite feasible, but it's a political decision that has to be made," Maybarduk said.
Thousands of miles south of the country, Brazil is living its own reality with the pandemic, one very different from that of the American Union.
Dr. Rosane Guerra, who works in the Department of Pathology, Center for Biological and Health Sciences at the Federal University of Maranhao (UFMA), Brazil, stressed that the current situation in the country to stop COVID-19 infections "is not good".
"Now we don't have any drugs to prevent or control the worst symptoms of this disease. The problem is mutations and we have a large number of people affected every day."
He explained that, along with India, are the countries with the highest levels of infection by COVID-19 in the world, so the possibility of having new variants has increased every day to the four that have already been detected so far.
And the government is not helping much to stop the pandemic, because although President Jair Bolsonaro was infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, he minimized the disease by saying that the disease was not serious and only generated the symptoms of a mild flu.
Guerra detailed that the president's words are added to those of the minister of health, who, in his opinion, does not know about the issue and has done nothing to stop the advance of the coronavirus in the country.
Areas like the Amazon, he said, suffer tremendously from the virus, and 70 percent of people in this area are believed to have tested positive for COVID-19.
The fact is that the Brazilian variant of the virus has spread the disease more rapidly, a situation that does not help at all.
Vaccination is the hope, yet so far, only 17 million people have received at least one dose of immunization.
Thus, for Guerra, maintaining an immunization bubble for a country is impossible, since not everyone is vaccinated and migration exposes everyone.
After more than a year of pandemic COVID-19, the disease revealed and exacerbated the serious problems that exist in society, which over the years have affected, especially the most vulnerable, who today more than ever suffer in medical, educational, housing and lack of work, among many others, so to move forward and heal will need to bet on equity and justice, experts said.
Manuel Pastor, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California, said the COVID-19 pandemic "revealed our ills as a society, and the pre-existing valleys of inequality have been inundated by the tsunami of disease.
This was stated during a briefing with the media held by Ethnic Media Serviceswhere he pointed out that the inequalities severely affected the community of immigrants with mixed legal immigration status who, while on the one hand the government was telling them they could have access to the vaccine, were also the same government that was eager to deport them.
Because of this, he said, "it's quite difficult to develop a level of trust" in government, a situation that was noticed early on in the pandemic and exacerbated in working-class people of color.
To this, he added that vaccination may have seemed, from the outset, equitable, however, many of the mass immunization sites were primarily designed to be accessed by car or to be reached by private transport, which discriminates against those who do not have access to a vehicle.
In addition, he said, it excludes those who don't have access to a computer, mobile devices or the Internet, which is why, from the beginning, the vaccination was aimed primarily at Caucasian residents.
Pastor detailed that "any state aid program should try to think about what it can do to be fully accessible to undocumented Californians."
He also explained that California decided to allocate 40 percent of the vaccines to the 25 percent of communities that had the worst rate of healthy places in the state, through local mobile clinics, who received the doses, mobilized trusted messengers and conducted campaigns to encourage vaccination.
That is why, he explained, it is necessary to see what will happen in the coming months, where it will be necessary to prioritize the needs of communities of color and undocumented residents, where they are taken into account for economic assistance and all relief programs.
On the educational level, Pastor pointed out that education is another area of the gap for communities of color, as they have experienced tremendous learning loss and, despite the reopening of schools, are the most reluctant to return.
In that sense, he said that families of color who suffered the virus at home are afraid to send their children to places where they may be infected, since it would mean occupying health services, a complicated situation for many, due to the lack of health insurance.
In addition, in Los Angeles County, 13 percent of white preschoolers did not have a computer with high-speed Internet, a figure that rises to 40 percent for African-American or Latino children.
Pastor stressed that the pandemic has also disproportionately affected the incomes of communities of color, which, while not causing a recession similar to that of 2008, which affected the economy evenly, residents are facing a "micro-recession."
And, according to Pastor, the stock and property markets have risen, so those with annual incomes above $100,000 are not affected, but not those at the bottom of the labor market, who have lost their income, jobs and, therefore, wages.
To the above, we must add mental health, where there is no equity either.
"The level of mental health trauma is high and we need to have culturally sensitive mental health resources available. We need to de-stigmatize the problem, make it be seen as a social and community-wide problem, not just your individual fault, so that people feel safe accessing those resources," she said.
The expert explained that, in communities of color, mental health is often seen as something to be treated in isolation, brutalized by a system, where people are seen as having to deal with that trauma on their own.
In that regard, Community Coalition Vice President of Organizational Development Leslie Johnson reported that the organization launched a site called "¿Estás bien? -in both Spanish and English, where residents can check their emotional health.
The "Are You OK?" campaign is a local coalition of residents and organizations dedicated to building healthy and resilient communities especially for the next generation.
In that sense, he explained that racism is the real pandemic being fought today, so it is necessary for officials to take seriously the mental health of those facing the pandemic who are attacked.
"COVID-19 has exacerbated many pre-existing conditions in our community that are fostered by institutional racism and white supremacy. We must call for solutions that are bold, not just at the individual level, but at the systems level," he said.
On Wednesday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle P. Walensky, endorsed the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that children aged 12 to 15 years be vaccinated with doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, calling on all providers to immediately immunize this sector of the population.
The official said in a statement that although most children with COVID-19 have mild or no symptoms, some can become seriously ill and require hospitalization.
He noted that there have also been rare and tragic cases of children dying from COVID-19 and its effects, including multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.
This official recommendation from the CDC follows the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision on Monday to authorize emergency use of this vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to 15, and is another important step toward moving out of the COVID-19 pandemic and closer to normalcy.
"For vaccination to do its job, we have to do our critical part. That means vaccinating as many eligible people as possible," Walensky said.
This official CDC action opens vaccination to approximately 17 million adolescents in the U.S. and strengthens our nation's efforts to protect more people from the effects of COVID-19.
"Vaccinating adolescents means their quicker return to social activities and can give parents and caregivers peace of mind knowing their family is protected," she added.
In that regard, she noted that some parents have already made plans for their teens to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
"It's understandable that some parents may want more information before their child receives a vaccine. I encourage parents who have questions to talk to their child's health care provider or primary care physician to get more information about the vaccine," she said.
At the same time, she said, "if your teen is behind on routinely recommended vaccinations because of the pandemic or for other reasons, now would be a good time to work with your child's nurse or doctor to make sure they're caught up.
Getting COVID-19 vaccine is faster and more convenient than ever. About nine out of 10 Americans live within 5 miles of a COVID-19 vaccination site.
In the coming weeks, two popular ridesharing services will offer free rides to immunization appointments through July 4.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has claimed thousands of lives over several years, however, in recent days, a new series of clashes with epicenter in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, have left at least 71 dead, 65 of them Palestinians.
Various factors and mobilizations reopened the causes of the conflict that have recently led to bombings.
Thus, the anti-aircraft alarms sounded Monday for the first time since 2014 in Jerusalem by rocket fire from Gaza, facts that were applauded by Palestinians gathered at the Damascus Gate, who gave an ultimatum to the Israeli police to release Palestinian detainees in the riots recently occurred in one of the main cities of Israel, including clashes in the esplanade of the mosques.
Shortly after the first rockets were fired, rioting resumed in east Jerusalem, resulting in more than 100 arrests, while a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship was shot dead by a Jewish Israeli.
Faced with this, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged being in a fight that has spread to several fronts: Jerusalem, Gaza and other parts in the country.
Israel responded to the attacks, and the disaster progressed. Gaza's Health Ministry reported 65 dead, including 16 children, and more than 300 wounded, according to the Al Jazeera news network, while Israel's internal intelligence service, the Shin Bet, reported that a dozen Hamas militiamen were killed.
President Joseph Biden spoke Wednesday with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He condemned the rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including against Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
He also conveyed his "unwavering support for Israel's security and for Israel's legitimate right to defend itself and its people while protecting civilians".
The White House said in a statement that the U.S. president also conveyed America's encouragement of a path toward restoring sustainable calm, and shared his conviction that Jerusalem, a city of such importance to people of faith around the world, must be a place of peace.
Biden updated the prime minister on U.S. diplomatic engagement with countries in the region, including Egypt, Jordan and Qatar, as well as Palestinian officials.
The two leaders agreed to maintain close consultation between their teams, which has included continued engagement of their respective foreign ministers, defense ministers, defense chiefs and national security advisers, and to stay in personal contact in the coming days.
This Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that as part of his California Recovery Plan, an additional $20 billion will be invested to support the potential of every public school student in the state and make the structural change necessary to reduce barriers and increase opportunity across the board.
This includes massive investments in public kindergarten, creating universal pre-kindergarten and college savings accounts for 3.7 million low-income public school children.
"We are doing more than just fully reopening for the next school year, we are proposing historic investments in public schools to create new opportunities for every student, especially those most in need, so that every child can thrive, regardless of their race or zip code," Newsom said.
"To achieve this goal, we're going big, targeting $20 billion in investments to transform our public schools, including creating universal pre-kindergarten and establishing college savings accounts for 3.7 million disadvantaged children for higher education or to start their own business," he added.
Under California's Recovery Plan, the state will make targeted investments of $20 billion in public education to ensure that every public school can fundamentally transform into the kind of complete campus that every parent would want for their child: before- and after-school instruction, sports and arts, one-on-one tutoring, nurses and counselors, and nutrition, along with new preventive behavioral health services for all children.
This includes $3 billion to create thousands of full-service community schools with comprehensive mental health, social and family services; $4 billion over five years to transform the youth behavioral health system to identify and treat behavioral health needs early; and billions more for investments in accelerated learning and our teachers and school staff.
To make college more affordable for California's low-income children, the governor proposes investing $2 billion to generate college savings accounts for vulnerable students currently enrolled in K-12 public schools, including a $500 base deposit for students from low-income families, English language learners, and foster youth, and a $500 supplemental deposit for foster and homeless youth.
The savings account can be used later in life for higher education or to start your own business, the governor said.
California will also finally achieve universal prekindergarten, providing free, high-quality transitional kindergarten to all California four-year-olds, regardless of income or immigration status.
The Comeback Plan also adds 100,000 child care slots and subsidies to reduce the cost of child care.
Hospitals in India have run out of beds, oxygen, medical, therapeutic and protective equipment, all during the second wave of COVID-19 that has left in its wake an average of 400 thousand new infections daily and three thousand deaths daily, such misfortune is catalogued as the worst health tragedy in the history of the country.
For Dr. Jalil Parkar, one of India's leading pulmonologists, this catastrophe "is worse than a tsunami. It's like a nuclear bomb.
This was pointed out during a press conference held by Ethnic Media ServicesIn his speech, he blamed the second wave on the residents themselves, who, he said, tired of the confinement established by the government to contain the pandemic, began to leave.
In addition to the weariness, there were various religious events, including the Kumbh Mela, which is held every 12 years, and in which more than 50 million people came to the small city of Haridwar, Uttarakhand, as well as political demonstrations.
The formula was perfect for disaster, Parkar knows well, who along with his wife suffered severe reactions to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and who after great effort, managed to pull through.
Indian media and public health experts believe that the official numbers are not close to reality, as for many, the figure is five to 10 times higher.
Images of what is happening in the main cities of the country show how complicated the tragedy has become, where the government has been, by far, surpassed.
"Every encounter has started to feel like a game of Russian roulette. Every time you go out, you feel like this could be the moment you bring the virus home," noted journalist Sandip Roy.
The immediate future does not look better for the Asian country, vaccination is progressing very slowly, because of a country of 1.2 billion people, only 26 million have been immunized, which means that only 2 percent of the population have received at least one dose of one of the two vaccines produced in the country: Covishield, the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Covaxin, local from India.
A long tunnel with no end in sight
Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, said that, according to a recent study, it is likely that for every positive case of COVID-19, there are 10 to 20 undetected cases.
Mutations of the virus complicate matters. Unlike the first wave of the virus in India, this second period has swept through, as younger and younger people began arriving in hospitals.
"The second wave is more lethal and infectious because of the mutation of the virus. If the vaccine is given to the majority of people, infection rates and deaths will definitely decrease," said Rosemarie De Souza, a physician in the intensive care unit of Mumbai's Nair Hospital.
According to her, much younger patients are dying from the virus without pre-existing comorbidities, a situation that could be due to India's double mutant variant, B.1.617, which is much more contagious and lethal than its predecessors.
Help on the way
Like other countries, the United States is sending aid to India to help it cope better with the disaster.
Thus, Senator Mark Warner, co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, recalled that a $100 million aid package has been created, which has begun to be channeled to India in personal protective equipment, concentrators and oxygen tanks, among other items.
He added that the U.S. also agreed to release 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
There is still a long way to go in the recovery of this country. However, the resilience and spirit of India will be indispensable to return to walk the streets without fear of contagion.
It will be as of tomorrow, May 12, that San Mateo goes to a "yellow" level, which will allow a multitude of indoor businesses and activities throughout the county to reopen or expand, as the risk of COVID-19 is "minimal."
This was reported by local authorities, who detailed that the change to yellow level is the least restrictive in the state of California, allowing for expanded capacity in restaurants, gyms, cinemas, indoor businesses and a number of other operations.
Bars that do not serve food may reopen with a maximum capacity of 25 percent or 100 people, whichever is less.
This is the first time that the the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has been at the yellow level since the state unveiled its color-coded plan for a safer economy last summer.
This development comes six weeks before California Governor Gavin Newsom said the entire state could be fully reopened by June 15.
"Moving to yellow is a credit to everyone who has worn their facemasks to stop the spread, and to the 76 percent of us here in San Mateo County who rolled up our sleeves and got the vaccine," said David J. Canepa, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
The local official noted that this development is also excellent news for the business community in the county.
The change to yellow officially takes effect on Wednesday, at 12:01 am.
This breakthrough was due to the fact that the adjusted COVID-19 case rate has dropped to 1.8 and the test positivity rate is 0.6 percent.
Separately, Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow has rescinded his June 17, 2020 order of social distancing guidelines and facial coverage requirements in favor of state guidance.
The measure brings San Mateo County in line with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the California Department of Public Health.
Thus, for fully vaccinated persons, they are not required to cover their face when outdoors, except when attending crowded events such as live performances, parades, fairs, festivals, sporting events, or other similar settings.
For unvaccinated persons, the requirement to wear masks at all times continues, especially when physical distance cannot be maintained, including when attending crowded outdoor events.
It should be noted that in indoor environments outside the home, including public transport, face coverings are still required regardless of vaccination status, with certain exceptions.
Rising temperatures will potentially alter Alaska's climate so profoundly that experts expect the number of thunderstorms to triple by the end of this century, increasing the risks of widespread flash floods, landslides and lightning-induced wildfires, according to new research.
According to a pair of new papers, a research team led by scientists from the Université des Sciences et des Lettres de Paris and the Centre National de la Recherche Atmosphérique - the French National Centre for Atmospheric Research - is working on a new research project on the subject.NCARThe Colorado-based study showed that sea ice around Alaska could give way to open water in the warmer months, creating an ample source of moisture for the atmosphere.
Such humidity, they said, combined with warmer temperatures that can hold more water vapor, would accelerate summer storms over Alaska by the end of the century under a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions.
"Alaska can expect three times as many storms, and those storms will be more intense," said NCAR scientist Andreas Prein, co-author of the new papers. "It will be a very different rainfall regime."
Thunderstorms would be widespread throughout Alaska, even in the northernmost regions, where such storms are virtually unknown.
For those regions further south in the state, which currently experience occasional thunderstorms, these weather events would become much more frequent and peak rainfall rates would increase by more than one-third.
To reach such a conclusion, the scientists used a set of advanced computer models and a specialized algorithm to simulate future weather conditions and track sources of moisture in the atmosphere.
The experts also realized that impacts in Alaska could be significantly reduced if society curbed emissions.
Floods are already the costliest type of natural disaster in central Alaska, and lightning-caused wildfires are a major hazard.
"We suspect that the increasing number of thunderstorms could have significant impacts, such as amplifying spring flooding or causing more forest fires," said Basile Poujol, a scientist at the Université des Sciences et des Lettres de Paris and lead author of both studies.
The heat invades Alaska
Alaska is expected to warm by 6 to 9 degrees Celsius - about 11 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit - by the end of the century if society pumps out large amounts of greenhouse gases.
The vast state is already experiencing damaging impacts from warmer temperatures, including longer wildfire seasons, record heat waves, and landslides and sinkholes caused by melting permafrost.
Experts have already warned that melting sea ice and more open water around Alaska will add more moisture to the atmosphere, fueling thunderstorms in warmer weather.
Tests showed that the frequency of storms south of the Yukon River increased from about once a year to every month during the warm season.
Hourly rainfall rates increased dramatically, reaching up to 37 percent more in storm cores. In addition, thunderstorms began to appear in regions that had not previously experienced them, such as the North Slope and West Coast.
The results also showed that moist air masses in the ice-free regions of the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean will provide ample fuel for storms.
Meanwhile, the warmer atmosphere will experience increasingly powerful thunderstorms that are more likely to organize and form large-scale clusters, increasing the potential for heavy rain and lightning.
