Tag Archive for: Climate Change

Why Does the Weather Stall? New Theories Explain Enigmatic ‘Blocks’ in the Jet Stream

/in , , /by /Science Magazineby Paul Voosen

It was the summer of 2003 in Europe, and, for a while, it seemed as if Earth’s weather system had broken down. For weeks a huge mass of air stalled over the continent, slowly subsiding and suppressing cloud formation, leaving day after day of brilliantly clear skies. The mercury rose, and a record-breaking heat wave gripped countries including France and Germany, causing 70,000 deaths. Then, as abruptly as it set in, the persistent atmospheric block eased, and high winds brought relief.

Few weather phenomena are as widely experienced—but poorly understood—as an atmospheric block. When a block arises, typically at the western edge of a continent, the jet stream splits, trapping a blob of seemingly static air thousands of kilometers across. Such blocks can last for weeks, and drive heat waves, drought, and winter cold snaps.

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Putting a Price on the Protective Power of Wetlands

/in , , /by /PHYS.orgby University of California, San Diego

In coastal communities prone to hurricanes and tropical storms, people typically turn to engineered solutions for protection: levees, sea walls and the like. But a natural buffer in the form of wetlands may be the more cost-effective solution, according to new research from the University of California San Diego.

In the most comprehensive study of its sort to date, UC San Diego economists show that U.S. counties with more wetlands experienced substantially less property damage from hurricanes and tropical storms over a recent 20-year period than those with fewer wetlands.

UC San Diego — A Leader in Climate Research — Under Pressure to Slash its Greenhouse Gases

/in , , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Gary Robbins

Bigger wildfires. Stronger storms. Longer droughts.

For years, UC San Diego has been out front in forecasting the impact of climate change, earning the school international praise.

But the campus also is hearing a blunt, new message: Do more to help fix the problem. Start by slashing the 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide UCSD puts into the air each year. And act quickly.

The message comes from a UCSD faculty task force which is proposing changes that could affect everything from how the school generates energy and the courses it offers to how often faculty can travel and the foods students are offered in campus dining halls.

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California’s Driest February and Coming Drought?

/in , , /by /California WaterBlog (UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences)by Jay Lund

February has been amazingly dry in California, if anyone hasn’t noticed.  No precipitation at all in February, a dry forecast, about 51% of seasonal Sacramento Valley precipitation (a bit less for the San Joaquin and Tulare basins), and only about half (45-57%) of normal snowpack for this time of year.  Unless March is wet, this dry year seems likely to advance the onset of the fire season and threaten forest health this year.

Reservoir levels are still not bad for this time of year.  Many are fuller than average, perhaps reflecting some snowpack loss.  Some other reservoirs are a bit low.  This is inherent in the first year of a drought, low precipitation and snowpack, but mostly ok reservoirs.

Groundwater has recovered somewhat from the previous 2012-2016 drought, better in the north, but less in the state’s more overdraft-prone areas in the San Joaquin and Tulare basins.

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Summers Are Starting Earlier, Finishing Later and Winter is in Retreat

/in , /by /The Sydney Morning Heraldby Peter Hannam

Australia’s summers have lengthened by as much as a month or more in the past half century, exposing people to greater fire and heat extremes and placing ecosystems and farm crops at risk.

Researchers from The Australia Institute analysed data from 70 of the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather stations across southern and sub-tropical Australia, where the bulk of the population lives. They found in the past five years, summers were 50 per cent longer than they were in the mid-20th century.

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What Would It Take to Get More Farmers Fighting Climate Change?

/in , /by /Mother Jonesby Tom Philpott

As signs of a new drought loom over California farm country and a potential return of last spring’s catastrophic floods haunts the Midwestern corn belt, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) is out with a new plan to ready US agriculture for the insults of climate change. Called the Agriculture Resilience Act, the bill would enlist growers to help slow global warming by using their soil to sponge up carbon dioxide. Agriculture is responsible for nearly 10 percent of our country’s carbon emissions. Pingree’s plan would establish a “national goal” of net zero greenhouse emissions from agriculture by no later than 2040.

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Ocean Protection Plan Charts Course for Defending California Coast

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Deborah Sullivan Brennan

A new ocean protection plan sets out steps to safeguard California’s coast against rising seas, while shoring up public access and building coastal economies.

The Ocean Protection Council on Wednesday approved the Strategic Plan to Protect California’s Oceans, a five-year roadmap for navigating threats including climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity. The council, a policy body within the California Natural Resources Agency, wanted to distinguish the new plan from previous editions, by focusing on specific timelines and funding sources.

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Water is Life. It’s Also a Battle. So What Does the Future Hold for California?

/in , /by /CalMatters (Sacramento, Calif.)by Alastair Bland

Water plays a lead role in the state’s political theater, with Democrats and Republicans polarized, farmers often fighting environmentalists and cities pitted against rural communities. Rivers are overallocated through sloppy water accounting. Groundwater has dwindled as farmers overdraw aquifers. Many communities lack safe drinking water. Native Americans want almost-extinct salmon runs revived. There is talk, too, of new water projects, including a massive new tunnel costing billions of dollars.

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Opinion: Climate Change and Water Supply

/in , /by /CalMatters (Sacramento, Calif.)by Dan Walters

California, as everyone knows, receives virtually all of its precipitation during a few fall and winter months and in 2019, some early rain and snow storms promised a bountiful water year.

This year, Mother Nature kept that promise in Southern California, where precipitation is running at or above the normal, but Northern California — far more important from a water supply standpoint — has been a different story.

The north has seen almost no precipitation since Christmas, the all-important Sierra snowpack is less than half of its average depth, and the region’s balmy, springlike weather shows no signs of ending.

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California’s New Plan to Deal With Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise OKd

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle by Peter Fimrite

A bold new plan to protect California’s ocean ecosystem from climate change and prepare for sea-level rise was approved Wednesday, setting the stage for sweeping coastal restoration, trash cleanup, research and rule-making involving numerous state agencies.

The strategic plan, adopted unanimously by the state’s Ocean Protection Council, is a blueprint for how state agencies should collaborate over the next five years with tribal groups, research organizations and underserved communities to prepare for ocean warming, acidification, rising seas and plastic pollution.

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