The largest wildfires in New Mexico’s history belong to the same troubling increase in conflagrations, exacerbated by drought and rising temperatures, that have burned vast areas of the western United States in recent years. William Anderegg, an associate professor at the University of Utah who studies forests and climate, has spent years tracking and projecting these changes. In research published last month in the journal Ecology Letters , he and colleagues assembled the history of three climate threats — fire, drought and insects — across 112 types of forest and outlined three scenarios for how they may rise through the century. Their conclusion? The Southwest […]