We’ve been seeing the horrific pictures and stories (not to mention ridiculous conspiracy theories) concerning the Australian wildfires, but their impact on Americans may be a bit blunted because we don’t really think Australia’s much more than an oversized island. Au contraire, thanks to Kyle Hill:
If you overlaid what’s happening in Australia right now on the US pic.twitter.com/I3LQPT8rh1
— Kyle Hill (@Sci_Phile) January 5, 2020
Australia’s area is 7,692,024 km2, and the United States’ area is 9,833,520 km2; subtract Alaska at 1,717,856 km2 and the continental United States’ area is roughly 8,115,664 km2, or we can just say Australia is roughly 94% the size of the continental United States.
And those fires are doing significant damage to an area about the size of our own.
Welcome to climate change, folks.
