I had a productive day today. I read two journal articles, and might have impacted The Economist newspaper.

Earlier, I received communication from an Economist West Coast writer and assistant digital editor thanking me for my email with a journal article about megadroughts in the southwestern North American states. In turn, Aryn shared an Economist article, which I have already read, and a journal article that she came across this week. I thanked her.

I read the journal article. It is very complicated, but I understood most of it. I just have to get the definitions down. It was right up my alley as a chemical engineer. It described atmospheric circulation and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) of water. It attempts to determine if wild fires in the west have increased due to anthropogenic climate change forcing or are they do to natural variability. The consensus and analysis showed that anthropogenic climate change is predominantly the cause.

Vapor pressure, as I learned in chemical engineering, is related to the mole concentration of water in the atmosphere. A mole is 6.022x10^23 molecules of water. The molecular weight of water is 18 grams/mole. So, if one knows the mass of water, he can calculate the moles and then the number of molecules. The molecules travel at a specific velocity, which is related to temperature, and impart a pressure. That is a simple description of vapor pressure. The deficit is the difference between the saturation vapor pressure and the actual vapor pressure. That relates to dryness.

Anyhow, I find her willingness to share the journal article with me, which is quite technical, interesting. It could be related to a product idea I suggested as a member of The Economist Global Advisory Council. So, I could be impacting The Economist newspaper again. After all, that is why I was chosen as a member. I am honored.

Here is the article:

Zhuang, Y., Fu, R., Santer, B. D., Dickinson, R. E., & Alex Hall. (2021). Quantifying contributions of natural variability and anthropogenic forcings on increased fire weather risk over the western United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(45), e2111875118.