Mom charged with leaving her 6-month-old baby in hot car for 5 hours

The infant’s death and that of a child in Arkansas Tuesday who was found unresponsive in a closed vehicle brings the total number of hot car deaths among youngsters to 18 this year. By Marianne Mizera, AccuWeather front page editor Published Aug. 17, 2022 3:38 AM IST | Updated Aug. 17, 2022 5:28 AM IST

A Louisiana mother has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of her 6-month-old infant who police said was left in a hot SUV for five hours on Sunday. In separate incident that occurred Tuesday, police in Fort Smith, Arkansas, are investigating the death of a young child who was found inside a closed car for an unknown amount of time. A good Samaritan saw the child inside the stifling hot vehicle and smashed in a window to pull the youngster out. The person then rushed the child to the hospital, but he died soon after. Temperatures topped 102 degrees Fahrenheit there on Tuesday, according to AccuWeather data. In the Louisiana case, authorities charged Ivy L. Lee, 22, of Lake Charles, with leaving her baby in a vehicle from 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., outside a building where she worked in the city. Temperatures in Lake Charles climbed into the 80s on Sunday, reaching a high of 89 F, according to AccuWeather data. The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office said Lee flagged down a sheriff's deputy about 2 miles from work around 3:45 p.m. and told him the baby was not breathing. The deputy and other officers who arrived on the scene began CPR on the child, who was then transported to a local hospital where she later died. The Sheriff’s Office said that the mother had initially given the deputies two different stories about what happened to her daughter, before finally telling them she had left the baby in the car while she worked.

Ivy L. Lee, 22, of Lake Charles, Louisiana, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of her infant daughter, who she left in her SUV for five hours on Aug. 14, 2022. (Photo/Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office) Lee is being held in Calcasieu Correctional Center on a $1.2 million bond, the Sheriff’s Office said. Data collected by the nonprofit Kids and Car Safety organization shows that more than 1,000 children have died in hot cars since 1990, with most age 3 and younger. At least another 7,300, the group notes, survived but with varying severities of injuries. These latest fatalities bring the total number of child hot car deaths to 18 for the year – all involving children 5 and younger, according to Kids and Car Safety, which tracks figures nationwide. The state of Louisiana ranks No. 5 in the nation with a total of 44 child hot car deaths since 1995, the group said. Experts note that cars become an oven within minutes of being closed. Data has shown that 80% of the temperature increase inside a car occurs in the first 10 minutes, according to Amber Rollins, director of the national non-profit organization KidsandCars.org. “It's important for families to understand that it doesn't have to be 90 degrees outside for a child to suffer from heatstroke inside of a vehicle," Rollins previously told AccuWeather. "We've seen children who have died in hot cars on days where the outside temperature was in the 50s or 60s outside, believe it or not, and that's because a vehicle does act like a greenhouse, so it allows that heat to come in through the windows, traps it inside and it's an oven; it heats up very quickly." Some of the other child hot car deaths reported this year include: • A 3-year-old girl was found unresponsive in a car in Carthage, Missouri, on Friday. The child was taken to a hospital in Joplin before being flown to a critical care hospital in Springfield. She was pronounced dead the next day, police told local media. AccuWeather data showed temps topped 94 degrees for the day. It was unclear how long the girl had been in the hot vehicle and whether the child was inadvertently left in the vehicle or if the child got in on her own. • An infant died on Aug. 9 after being left in a hot car in Washington, D.C. • A toddler died in May after he was left for six hours in a hot vehicle parked outside a daycare center in Memphis, Tennessee. • A 5-year-old boy in June was accidentally left in a car for several hours in the Houston area as the family prepared to celebrate the birthday of his 8-year-old sister. • An 11-month-old boy was left in a hot car in Florida in July.

At least 16 dead following catastrophic flooding in western China

18 people remain missing following late-night flooding and heavy rain that triggered landslides and turned a mountainous region in China into a deadly flash flood. Heavy rainfall produced catastrophic flooding in the western Chinese province of Qinghai, killing 16 people while at least 18 others remain missing, Chinese state media reported on Thursday. The sudden onset of severe downpours late Wednesday evening over a mountainous region in Qinghai triggered landslides, and the raging water diverted rivers that resulted in flash flooding in a populated area late Wednesday night. According to the state broadcaster CCTV, more than 6,000 people in six villages were immediately affected. The flash flooding was described as a "mountain torrent," according to emergency officials, The Associated Press reported. Occurring after a heavy downpour in higher elevations, mountain In a video shared online of the aftermath, partially washed away roads that were covered in debris, uprooted trees and overturned cars could be seen, the AP reported. According to Reuters, a rescue team of 2,000 people and 160 disaster relief vehicles have been sent to the area by the local government. Rescuers, who earlier reported 36 people missing, had found 18 of them by early Thursday afternoon, CCTV said in an online update. Through the rest of the week, temperatures will be in the 70s to low 80s, and more showers and thunderstorms are expected in Datong County, which was the epicenter of the flooding in Qinghai Province.torrents result when water running down turns gullies or streams into raging rivers, often catching people by surprise.

Flood damage in Qinghai province in northwestern China on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (Reuters) In a video shared online of the aftermath, partially washed away roads that were covered in debris, uprooted trees and overturned cars could be seen, the AP reported. According to Reuters, a rescue team of 2,000 people and 160 disaster relief vehicles have been sent to the area by the local government. Rescuers, who earlier reported 36 people missing, had found 18 of them by early Thursday afternoon, CCTV said in an online update. Through the rest of the week, temperatures will be in the 70s to low 80s, and more showers and thunderstorms are expected in Datong County, which was the epicenter of the flooding in Qinghai Province. This has been the summer of extremes for China, which has been grappling with historic floods, heat waves and droughts across the country. In late June, as rivers overflowed, a historic flood brought devastation to the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangxi across central and southern China, which displaced tens of thousands of people.

Residents walk with umbrellas near a puddle during a rainy day in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Currently, the worst heat wave in six decades is roasting a large swath of central China, sending temperatures 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. This comes just a month after Shanghai, the most populated city in China, endured a dangerous heat wave, which sent temperatures past the century mark. According to the China Meteorological Administration, more than a third of the weather stations across the country have recorded extreme heat this summer, Al Jazeera reported. At least 262 stations reached or surpassed previous records. The Ministry of Finance said on Thursday that they have allocated 420 million yuan ($61.83 million) of emergency funds for local governments to provide food and drought relief as the country continues to grapple with extreme weather, according to Al Jazeera.

Forests face climate change tug of war

Forests face climate change tug of war

In a world of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, plants should be happy, right? Experiments have shown that, yes, increased carbon dioxide does allow plants to photosynthesize more and use less water.

But the other side of the coin is that warmer temperatures drive plants to use more water and photosynthesize less. So, which force, CO2 fertilization or heat stress, wins this climate tug of war?

The answer, University of Utah researchers write in a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that it depends on whether forests and trees are able to adapt to their new environment. The study, they say, incorporates aspects of a tree's physiology to explore how trees and forests respond to a changing climate.

"It's taking the physiology of individual cells and scaling it up in a computer to make projections of a continents' worth of forests," says study co-author William Anderegg.

Stemming water loss

To set the stage for this tug of war, it's important to understand how trees and plants use water.

In a tree, water is pulled up from the roots through the xylem, the tree's vascular system. The water moves to the leaves, where photosynthesis happens. On the underside of leaves, small pores called stomata open to admit CO2 for photosynthesis. Water vapor can escape through the stomata, though, so closing stomata is required to guard against water loss during dry or hot times.

During an intense drought, trees have to work harder to pull water into the tree and through the xylem. If the soil is dry enough, the tension on the water causes a bubble of air to form in the xylem, effectively reducing water transport and injuring or killing the tree. It's akin to a heart attack.

A physiological model

John Sperry of the U's School of Biological Sciences spent decades studying the physiology of tree water use, and in recent years has been joined by Anderegg and postdoctoral researcher Martin Venturas, along with other colleagues. Together, they've developed a model of how trees' physiological traits, primarily the regulation of stomatal opening, influences photosynthesis and water loss in response to a changing environment, including drought.

This model, Sperry says, has now enabled a new way of predicting the outcome of the climate tug of war, quantifying the competing effects of CO2 fertilization and heat stress to find the balance point.

But it's also enabled another advance in understanding: Anderegg says that the model allows them to simulate the ability of trees to acclimate to heat and drought -- both at short time scales, by closing or opening stomata, or at long time scales, by extra tree growth or forest dieback. "We're assuming the plants are adapted to be somewhat smart about responding to the climate and the environment," Anderegg says.

Some acclimation was seen in previous experiments where trees were bathed in CO2-enriched air, Venturas adds, and is also seen in forests that are similar to each other but are located in slightly different climates.

"Our present-day models don't do physiology or acclimation," Anderegg says. "They matter absolutely enormously to the future of forests. We came up with ways to incorporate those."

It's all about the ratio

The model results, Sperry says, suggest that the winner of the tug of war doesn't depend on the absolute amount of CO2rise or warming -- just the ratio between the two.

"So you can have the same forest moving across big gradients in climate change if that ratio is at the neutral point," Sperry says. "But anything that pushes that ratio to the warming side is going to have potential for serious negative impact."

If forests aren't able to acclimate, the researchers write, then the ratio must be above 89 parts per million CO2 per degree C of warming to avoid significant stress and tree die-off. Only 55% of climate forecasts show this scenario occurring. But if forests are able to acclimate, then they can tolerate a lower ratio: 67 parts per million CO2 per degree of warming, which occurs in 71% of forecasts.

Other tipping factors

But even with acclimation, other factors can tip the balance toward forest catastrophe. The model doesn't take into account forest fires or insect infestation, Venturas says, only the physiology of the trees -- although stressed forests are more susceptible to both fires and insects.

"It's improving one piece of the puzzle, but we still need to learn a lot about the other pieces and how they're integrated," he says.

The researchers also write that exceptionally dry years can also tip the balance. "In those cases, if we drop below a soil moisture threshold, we could have the whole forest die," Venturas says. The mortality can happen relatively suddenly. "You see this in your flower pot at home if you forget to water," Sperry says. "It'll look fine up to a certain point but then you hit that moisture threshold and in a matter of days the plant can die. If you don't get rain in that period, the system goes into a cycle where the soil's drying out too fast and sends the trees into vascular failure."

Sperry adds that the study predicts a precarious tightrope of climate conditions for future forests to navigate. "The study by no means gives a green light to the status quo."