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By Casey Roepke ’21
News Editor
The past year has brought a pandemic, political unrest and other chaotic events into the public experience. 2020 has also included record-breaking natural disasters that many say will only worsen with the ongoing impacts of climate change.
The Mount Holyoke News reported on 2020’s worst natural disasters and environmental catastrophes, from wildfires and floods to heatwaves and cyclones. Here is 2020 in review:
Australia Wildfires
In January 2020, wildfires burning through the Australian bush since late 2019 converged into one of the worst recorded fire seasons. The New York Times called it “calamitous,” citing drought, high winds and a heatwave — including Australia’s hottest day on record with average high temperatures of 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit — for the heightened impact. Tens of millions of acres burned throughout the continent, and 33 people died due to the fires, according to the Australian Parliament.
The United Nations Association of Australia has stated that Australia is high on the list of developed countries most vulnerable to climate change. While Australia typically experiences wildfires, this season was especially destructive because climate change has already begun to increase drought and heat intensity, leading to more dangerous fire conditions.
“I had anticipated the whole landscape to be blackened, but instead the line of the fire front snaked along, dividing the land,” Yasmin Andrews ’22 said in their January on-location coverage of the fires in the Mount Holyoke News. “We saw trees burning from the inside out, small flames peeking out of fallen leaves and dried out stream beds. Most alarmingly, the fire had come within 30 feet of the house, after leaving the nearby shearing shed a twisted pile of metal.”
California Wildfires
Residents of California and much of the Pacific Northwest also experienced record-breaking destruction from wildfires in 2020, starting in August and extending into October. In California, the August Complex wildfire was the first to burn 1 million acres in the state’s history, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, earning it the title of California’s first “gigafire.”
Stanford University researchers estimated that exposure to air pollution from the smoke caused by the fires may have indirectly led to thousands of more deaths in California alone and link the higher risk of burning to climate change. This came in the wake of a Southern California heatwave which reached a high of 121 degrees Fahrenheit, a new record, according to The New York Times.
“You can barely see the sun,” Alexa Harbury ’24, who lives in Oregon, said to the Mount Holyoke News in September. “For the whole of last week, it was hard to tell what time of day it was, because everything just looked yellow or orange.”
Philippines Floods
In November 2020, areas in the Philippines within Cagayan province were exposed to flash floods that submerged whole villages underwater.
The New York Times reported that rain and typhoons caused the flooding and subsequent landslides. Typhoon Goni hit the Philippines in late October with winds as high as 165 miles per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which categorized it as a super typhoon. Around 70 people died as a result of the floods, and the government was compelled to deliver supplies and reinforcements to residents by air.
Vietnam Typhoons
2020 has been Vietnam’s worst season for tropical storms in decades. The Mount Holyoke News previously reported that Typhoon Molave marked the fourth storm in an intense typhoon season that had already killed 130 people and destroyed over 300,000 homes.
Hurricanes
Hurricane Eta made landfall in Nicaragua in November as a Category 4 hurricane. With Eta, 2020 ties with 2005 for the record of having the most storms that have grown strong enough to be named, as recorded by the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. According to The New York Times, climate scientists have drawn a connection between global warming and more intense hurricanes.
With less than a month until the end of the year, it is hard to predict what natural disasters 2020 will bring next.