As wildfires get more extreme, observatories are at greater risk
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On June 17, the fire blazed right up to many of the telescopes on the southwest ridge of the summit, destroying a cabin, dormitory, and utility shed. The flames damaged at least 18 power poles, wiping out electricity and data service, meaning that science operations at the observatory won’t resume until at least the end of August.
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Kitt Peak isn’t the first observatory threatened as climate change exacerbates the severity of wildfires. Other research fields, which depend on access to glaciers, snow, and remote weather stations, are facing similar warming-related problems.
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Fires aren’t the only natural disaster putting observatories at risk. Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory suffered damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017. (It was further damaged by a snapped cable in 2020 and collapsed a few months later.) The Atacama Desert—one of the world’s best places to put a telescope, according to Rector, because of its historical lack of rain—now endures regular storms and flooding.
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As a result, astronomers are forced to consider how climate change is affecting their work. Matthew Shetrone, deputy director of the University of California Observatories, which operates Lick, says that researchers there have recently started measuring changes in atmospheric turbulence, the fluctuations in air flow that make the stars twinkle and show up blurry in images, which might help them design optical systems that can alleviate this effect.
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