Climate change is worsening heatwaves and droughts, fueling wildfires and stressing electrical grids [See links below — Ed.] but it’s also helping to solve 56-year-old mysteries. So there’s that? Historically low water levels at California’s Folsom Lake enabled the discovery of an airplane bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Piper Comanche 250 that crashed into the lake on New Year’s Day of 1965, killing four people. Usually the lake at that point is so deep sonar imaging could never reach it, but the outlines of the plane are clearly visible in what is now only 160 feet of water.
Only one victim’s body was ever recovered, but Katherine Radican told ABC news her husband Frank Wilcox, who died just three years ago, spent nearly his entire life searching the area for signs of his brother who perished in the crash. Local officials will meet with the company that discovered the plane to evaluate the possibility of recovering it. (ABC, Earther, CBS, The Guardian, New York Post, The Independent, Insider, CBS LA, CBS Sacramento; Climate Signals background: Drought)