|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Summer may be over but you may have noticed that mosquito season is not. Scientists say that this is due to climate change.
This summer brought a record for both heat and rain, two things that mosquitos love. For every 1 degree warmer the planet gets, the air is saturated with 4% more water. The more rain there is, the more pools and puddles there are for mosquitoes to lay their eggs.
Mosquitoes can carry disease and multiple states have issued public health warnings. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has requested federal funds to fight off the invasion in New York.
“The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey,” Andrew Dobson, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, told Grist. “But this year seems much worse than normal.”
That’s a joke. The state bird of New Jersey is the American Goldfinch.
