Wildfires Can Create Their Own Storms

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Science

4.6 • 964 Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learn about how wildfires are powerful enough to create their own storms, how the invention of bags influenced human evolution, and how announcers with low voices can make products larger.

Wildfires can create their own storms by Cameron Duke

Specktor, B. (2017, December 12). What Are Pyrocumulus Clouds? California Fires Spawn Eerie Formations. Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/61167-what-are-pyrocumulus-clouds.html
Cunningham, P., & Reeder, M. J. (2009). Severe convective storms initiated by intense wildfires: Numerical simulations of pyro-convection and pyro-tornadogenesis. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(12). https://doi.org/10.1029/2009gl039262
What Makes a Firenado? (2020, August 23). Sierra Club. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/what-makes-firenado#:~:text=During%20the%20Carr%20Fire%20in
WMO. (2017). Flammagenitus | International Cloud Atlas. International Cloud Atlas. https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/flammagenitus.html
NASA - Fire-Breathing Storm Systems. (2010). Nasa.Gov. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/pyrocb.html

How bags enabled human evolution by Cameron Duke

Bell, B. (2017, June 4). Who killed Oetzi the Iceman? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40104139
Hardy, B. L., Moncel, M.-H., Kerfant, C., Lebon, M., Bellot-Gurlet, L., & Mélard, N. (2020). Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications. Scientific Reports, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w
Langley, M. C., & Suddendorf, T. (2020). Mobile containers in human cognitive evolution studies: Understudied and underrepresented. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21857
Langley, M., & Suddendorf, T. (2020, August 12). Got your bag? The critical place of mobile containers in human evolution. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/got-your-bag-the-critical-place-of-mobile-containers-in-human-evolution-142712

Deep Voices And Low Pitches Make Products Seem Larger by Stephanie Bucklin

Lowe, M. L., & Haws, K. L. (2017). Sounds Big: The Effects of Acoustic Pitch on Product Perceptions. Journal of Marketing Research, 54(2), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.14.0300
When It Comes to Size, Sound Matters in Ads. (2017). Gatech.Edu. http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/04/13/when-it-comes-size-sound-matters-ads
Wehner, M. (2017, April 15). Arby’s Voice: How Deep Voices Affect Your Mind. BGR; BGR. https://bgr.com/2017/04/14/arbys-voice-advertising-research/
N. Gutierrez. (2017, April 17). What Sounds Have To Do With Making Products, Foods Appear Larger In Commercial Ads. Science Times. http://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/12579/20170417/what-sounds-making-products-foods-appear-larger-commercial-ads.htm
Mondloch, C. J., & Maurer, D. (2004). Do small white balls squeak? Pitch-object correspondences in young children. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4(2), 133–136. https://doi.org/10.3758/cabn.4.2.133
Morton, E..S. (19 77). On the Occurrence and Significance of Motivation-Structural Rules in Some Bird and Mammal Sounds. The American Naturalist. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/283219

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com.
0:06.0	I'm Ashley Hamer.
0:07.0	And I'm Natalia Reagan.
0:09.0	Today you learn how wildfires are powerful enough to create their own storms,
0:12.8	how the invention of bags influenced human evolution,
0:15.7	and how announcers with really low voices
0:18.0	can make products seem larger.
0:19.8	Let's satisfy some curiosity.
0:22.3	At the moment we're recording this, large swaths of California, Oregon, and Colorado are being
0:29.2	consumed by wildfires.
0:31.8	In fact, this year saw the largest wildfire in Colorado history and the second
0:36.7	and third largest fires in California history. The changing climate is driving these fires, and the fires that get big enough strike back.
0:45.7	They create their own weather. That's right. Large wildfires have a tendency to create pyrocumulus clouds. See as fires burn they
0:56.3	release moisture from plants and convert it to steam. That on its own doesn't
1:01.6	form clouds.
1:03.0	But tons of steam combined with tiny solid ash particles does.
1:09.0	The ash clings to the water particles,
1:12.0	acting as condensation nuclei, otherwise known as cloud seeds.
1:17.2	In fact, you need particles of dirt or dust to form any cloud, not just pyro cumulus clouds.
1:23.0	Once these ingredients have combined, the heat of the fire creates a strong
1:28.0	updraft that drags them into the sky to create towering puffy gray clouds.
1:33.0	And we're talking towering.
	...

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