The American Southwest is becoming drier because of climate change, contrary to the global trend of warm air holding more moistureThe American Southwest is becoming drier because of climate change, contrary to the global trend of warm air holding more moisture, a new study published in Nature Climate Change finds. Instead, as winter and spring soils have dried out, there’s less moisture in the ground to evaporate. That’s led to the decline in summer humidity over the past decades in the region, illustrating how climate change, caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, impacts different regions.

The findings also link climate change to worsening wildfires in the region. “High temperature, low humidity days help desiccate the vegetation,” Karen McKinnon, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and lead author of the study, told the New York Times, meaning “the fire weather itself is worse.” (New York Times $)