These photos appeared in Discover’s annual state of science issue. Support our science journalism by becoming a subscriber.
A Warming World, and a Stranger One: Natural disasters are a normal part of life on Earth, but 2020 layered historic levels of devastation on top of the COVID-19 pandemic. In North America, massive wildfires seared parts of the western U.S. from late summer into fall, forcing more than half a million people to evacuate in the midst of the health crisis.
