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NOAA Predicts Warmer Than Average Temperatures For The Entire U.S. Through December

/in , /by /The Weather Channelby Brian Donegan

Fall officially arrived with the autumnal equinox at 3:50 a.m. EDT Monday morning, but finding the colder weather more typical of autumn may be a difficult task, according to the latest three-month outlook from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

The CPC predicts that the entire country will have warmer than average temperatures from October through December. You read that correctly: No areas of the United States are forecast to have below average temperatures when averaged over that three-month period.

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Phishing Campaign Continues to Target Utilities, Evolves Attack Techniques

/in , /by /Utility Diveby Robert Walton

Security firm Proofpoint on Monday revealed that what appears to be a state-sponsored hacking campaign targeting the U.S. utility sector with malware dubbed “Lookback” has continued and grown more sophisticated since it was first revealed this summer.

Proofpoint now says it has identified 17 utilities targeted from April 5 through Aug. 29, employing previously unknown techniques and with later phishing attempts using updated macros to obscure their purpose. The firm’s previous report said it had identified three targeted utilities.

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Water Policy Priorities For A Changing California

/in , , /by /Public Policy Institute of Californiaby Ellen Hanak

How will climate change affect California water management, and what steps should the state take to prepare for these changes? The PPIC Water Policy Center was asked by the Newsom administration to submit formal comments outlining key water policy priorities for the state—and ways to integrate actions across state agencies to implement these priorities. Our recommendations will inform the administration’s preparation of a water resilience portfolio. We address two key areas where the state can play a leading role—modernizing the water grid and protecting freshwater ecosystems.

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These Trees Survived California’s Drought And That’s Giving Scientists Hope For Climate Change

/in , , /by /KQEDby Lauren Sommer

When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides.

But some trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists are racing to collect them and other species around the globe in the hope that these “climate survivors” may have a natural advantage, allowing them to cope with a warming world a bit better than others in their species.

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California’s Power Supply Is Getting Greener. It’s Still Got Far To Go.

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Mallory Moench

Over the past decade, California has become a globally acclaimed leader on renewable energy. Fueled by aggressive public policies, plummeting solar prices and evolving technology, the state has cut greenhouse gas emissions from its electric power supply in half since their 2008 peak, according to the California Air Resources Board.

“It’s really astounding how carbon dioxide emissions have been cut,” said Anthony Kovscek, chairman of the energy resources engineering department at Stanford University. “It’s been really remarkable how much renewable and solar we’ve been able to put on the grid and balance it.”

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Wifi Wires Will Run Through Water Pipes In Northern Washington Town

/in , /by /KUOW by John Ryan

A normally busy sidewalk on Seattle’s University Way Northeast has been cordoned off for an all-too-common reason: the concrete is being torn up to put in new fiber optic cable.

An hour north, the seaside town of Anacortes has found a way to avoid all that disruption: fiber optics cables in existing water pipes.

Sitting inside Anacortes’ main water pipe is a skinny plastic tube, like a drinking straw inside a glass of water.

“We have inserted a fiber optics cable inside of live water lines all the way from Mount Vernon to Anacortes,” said Fred Buckenmeyer, who runs the city’s public works department. “First in North America.”

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The Long and Winding Road of Salmon Trucking in California

/in , /by /California WaterBlog by Ann Wills

Trucking juvenile hatchery salmon downstream is often used in the California Central Valley to reduce mortality during their perilous swim to the ocean. But is it all good? Researchers at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Francisco and NOAA Fisheries published an article in Fisheries this month exploring the history and implications of salmon trucking in a changing climate.

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California’s Chronic Water Overuse Leads To Sinking Towns, Arsenic Pollution

/in , , /by /CBC Newsby Kim Brunhuber

When you walk through Jeannie Williams’s sunny orchard, you don’t notice anything wrong. But the problem’s there, underfoot. The land around her — about 250 square kilometres — is sinking.

“It’s frightening,” Williams says. “Is the land going to come back up? I don’t know.”

She points out the well from which she obtains all of the water she needs to grow organic fruits and vegetables. The well is small and shallow; she only has two acres of crops to water. But her neighbours are far more thirsty, and have been for a very long time.

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Gravel Project Aims To Replenish Critical Nursing Areas Of The American River For Fish

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks

thousands of tons of gravel is being laid in the American River this month, re-establishing a crucial spawning area for hundreds of native salmon and steelhead trout.

On Friday, crews used rocks and stones dredged up from the river more than a century ago during Gold Rush to create opportunities to find shelter and food for the fish at Sailor Bay.

The project will ultimately add 14,000 tons from the floodplain to the flowing water near Fair Oaks before Chinook salmon begin to make the grueling trek from the Pacific Ocean up to the American River starting in October.

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The ‘Blob’ Is Surging Back In The Pacific, Leading To Fears Of Mass Die-Offs Of Marine Life And Unusual Weather Patterns

/in , , /by /The Washington Post by Andrew Freedman and Lauren Tierney

Across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean extending from Hawaii north to the shores of Alaska, and southeast to near California, a new marine heat wave is underway. This event is widely referred to as “The Blob Part Two,” or just another “Blob,” after the first event, which took place 2014 through 2016, earned that odd moniker based on its bold red appearance on maps of ocean surface temperatures.

The new incarnation has already caused coral bleaching in the Hawaiian islands, and it may be tied to strandings of marine mammals along the California coast.

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